Warrants detail weapons found after shooting spree
New Mexico State Police agents found more than 100 cartridges, a revolver and a rifle with a scope inside a stolen pickup they believe was used in a June 15 shooting spree in Northern New Mexico that killed three members of one family and two other men, according to court documents.
One of three search warrants filed in a state District Court and unsealed Tuesday says state police searched a 2012 black Chevrolet Silverado, which belonged to Michael Kyte, an archaeologist from Tres Piedras. Police believe 21-year-old Damian Herrera of Ojo Caliente killed Kyte on June 15 and fled in the man’s truck after first gunning down three of his own family members at their home in La Madera.
A state police spokeswoman didn’t respond to an email from
The New Mexican asking whether the cartridges and the two firearms found in the pickup belonged to Herrera or whether they were in the truck at the time it was stolen.
The unsealed warrants provide a list of items found in two pickups police believe Herrera drove during one of the deadliest rampages in Northern New Mexico in more than a quarter-century. But they offer few clues about what may have sparked the bloody spree.
Herrera is facing five counts of murder. He is accused of killing his mother, Maria “Brenda” Rosita Gallegos, his stepfather, Max Trujillo Sr., and his 20-yearold brother, Brendon Herrera, during a dispute. He fled in the family’s truck, police say, and then encountered Kyte, whom he allegedly killed before stealing the man’s truck. After a long drive into Colorado and then back into New Mexico in the stolen pickup, police say, Herrera fatally shot his fifth victim, Manuel Serrano, an employee of the Georgia O’Keeffe house and studio, at Bode’s General Store in Abiquiú.
Herrera is being held in the Rio Arriba County jail in Tierra Amarilla without bond pending his trial.
Rio Arriba County Magistrate Judge Joseph Madrid on Tuesday extended state prosecutors’ dead-
line to either present their case against Herrera to a grand jury or hold a preliminary hearing. Prosecutors now have 60 days rather than the original 10 days, the judge decided.
Assistant District Attorney Erik Scramlin had asked the judge for the extension, court documents show.
Michael Rosenfield, a public defender representing Herrera, declined to comment on the case Tuesday or the motive for the shootings.
Police say Herrera used a .38-caliber revolver in the rampage, which investigators later recovered.
An image posted in December on Herrera’s Facebook page shows what appears to be a green rifle on a bipod with a mounted scope.
A statement of probable cause filed by the Rio Arriba County Sheriff ’s Office in the Magistrate Court in Española says investigators found a green rifle on a couch at Herrera’s parents’ home in La Madera and a gun locker in a bedroom. The gun locker’s glass enclosure was shattered, “with rifles in disarray,” the document says.
Among the other things police found inside Kyte’s truck include a wallet, cash, a driver’s license, a Social Security card, a debit card and other credit cards that had belonged to Herrera’s stepfather, a search warrant says. Police also found a black handbag containing a temporary driver’s license that belonged to his mother.
According to another warrant in the case, police searched Herrera and the Toyota truck that officers say he had used to flee from La Madera. In the Toyota, the warrant says, Rio Arriba County deputies found cartridges, a plastic bottle and a black glove with suspected bloodstains.
State police officers seized Herrera’s black belt and knife holster, and the clothing he was wearing the day of the shooting, including a bloodstained shirt, the warrant says.