A VIOLENT HISTORY

1997: One of Thomas Ferguson’s first criminal convictions: possession of methamphetamine.

2003: Ferguson is convicted of beating his wife in Santa Fe, hitting, choking and kicking her while she held their 8-month-old daughter.

2014: Ferguson is charged with kidnapping, raping and beating his girlfriend at the time, in an ordeal that started on Valentine’s Day.

2015: Ferguson pleads guilty to beating and kidnapping his girlfriend in 2014. District Judge T. Glenn Ellington sentences him to nearly nine years of prison time but suspends most of that time; not long after, Ferguson is released from jail on probation.

2016: Ferguson is accused of beating his girlfriend in Rio Rancho; he pleads no contest.

Fall 2016: Jeremiah Valencia, a former student at Santa Fe Public Schools, enrolls in a middle school in the West Las Vegas (N.M.) School District.

February 2017: Jeremiah’s mother, Tracy Ann Peña, takes the boy and his sister out of school in Las Vegas, saying she’s taking them back to Santa Fe. They never show up for classes there.

June 2017: Ferguson, living in Las Vegas, where he is working and checking in regularly with his probation officer, tells his probation officer he is moving to a home in Nambé with Peña and her children. He eventually begins missing meetings with the officer and stops responding to calls.

July 2017: Probation and Parole Division officers visit the Nambé house but do not speak with Ferguson because they fear the pit bulls in his yard.

August 2017: Ferguson is declared an absconder from probation.

Nov. 21, 2017: A judge signs a bench warrant for Ferguson’s arrest, and agents begin looking for him but don’t check the Nambé home.

Nov. 24, 2017: Peña is arrested and held in the Santa Fe County jail on a warrant charging failure to appear in court.

Nov. 26, 2017: The day sheriff’s investigators believe Ferguson killed Jeremiah after a series of brutal beatings. Peña comes home from jail to find her son dead and Ferguson forces her and his 19-year-old son, Jordan Anthony Nuñez, to bury the boy’s body along a roadside in Nambé, investigators say.

Jan. 17, 2018: Ferguson and Peña are both arrested and booked into Santa Fe County jail; he is booked on probation violations and she is booked on another warrant charging failure to appear.

Jan. 25, 2018: Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office learns of Valencia’s slaying; court documents say Peña spoke with a fellow inmate about his death and Ferguson’s involvement.

Jan. 29, 2018: Ferguson is accused in Valencia’s death while still jailed on the probation violation. Peña and Nuñez also face charges.

Feb. 16, 2018: Ferguson is indicted by a grand jury on 18 charges, including felony counts ranging from first-degree murder to kidnapping and child abuse, and a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of reporting or investigation of child abuse or neglect.

March 7, 2018: Peña is indicted by a grand jury on 12 charges, including child abuse resulting in death, tampering with evidence and conspiracy to tamper with evidence.

April 3, 2018: Nuñez is indicted by a grand jury on 13 charges, including felony counts of intentional child abuse resulting in death, tampering with evidence and a misdemeanor for obstructing report of child abuse or neglect.

April 11, 2018: Ferguson is sentenced for violating the terms of his probation in the 2014 case. He is ordered to prison until roughly January 2024.

April 27, 2018: Ferguson is found dead hanging in his jail cell around 11:15 p.m.