3 SLAIN IN DIXON
State police investigating incident, mum on details
New Mexico State Police are investigating a triple homicide near the Northern New Mexico community of Dixon, where officers found three bodies inside an adobe home on a hill overlooking N.M. 580.
A person familiar with the home in tiny Cañoncito, about two miles east of Dixon in Rio Arriba County, went there late Wednesday night, discovered the bodies and reported the slayings, police said. After obtaining search warrants, officers early Thursday began trying to determine what happened and why.
The agency has not released the victims’ names, the manner in which they were killed or possible suspects in the case.
But Roxanne Sanchez of Vadito identified one of the victims as Kierin Guillemin, believed to be in his late 20s.
Sanchez said Guillemin was her boyfriend and had moved from New Jersey to New Mexico about five years ago.
Guillemin was a farmer in the community, she said.
Kristen Davenport, co-owner of
the Boxcar Farm in nearby Llano, said Guillemin worked for her and that she became concerned for his welfare when he did not show up for work
Tuesday and Wednesday. He would usually call if he was sick or planning to be absent for some other reason, she said.
A friend of Guillemin’s drove by the house Wednesday, she said, and saw his red pickup parked outside. The friend then called Davenport.
“It was not a house that either of us was interested in approaching because of the reputation it had for what was going on there,” Davenport said, referring to concerns in the community about drug use in the home. She called New Mexico State Police, she said and asked them to conduct a welfare check on Guillemin later that day, she said, but she was not sure if they did.
“Kierin was a really sweet person, a kindhearted and sweet-natured kid, and he didn’t deserve this,” Davenport said. “He had been struggling in recent months after an accident he had last October and had a lot of difficulties over the past six months. I am just so sorry that this senselessness had to happen.”
Sanchez said Guillemin suffered a broken leg in a motorbike accident and may have been taking prescription medication to ease the pain.
Their relationship had been rocky in recent months, she added, saying they had separated but were trying to figure things out.
Jennifer Rigby, a neighbor on N.M. 580, said some members of the community believed there was drug use in the home and someone once had painted the words “This is a drug house” on the road in front of it, with an arrow pointing toward the home. The words later were painted over, she said.
It’s unclear if the home was known to local authorities.
Maj. Randy Sanchez of the Rio Arriba County Sheriff ’s Office said, “I haven’t seen anything come across my desk that indicates we have had any problems there. … I had heard about someone writing something on the highway in front of the house.”
The brown house is barely visible from N.M. 580, which runs southeast, parallel to Embudo Creek.
What made the house stand out, neighbors said, was the traffic.
Multiple neighbors told The New Mexican that heavy traffic in and out of the home’s steep driveway fed their assumption there might have been drug activity there.
“A majority of the community would probably say that,” said one neighbor who lives just down the road and asked not to be identified. “You pay attention to what goes on, you see cars go up and down. … You can’t do anything about it. You can’t bust them yourself. And then something like this happens.”
The occupants of the home didn’t cause much of a ruckus, Rigby said. But, she said, the house did have a reputation.
“I feel bad because we’ve known this, and this is what it’s come to,” she said. “If we had dealt with this before, maybe people would not have lost their lives.”
State police Lt. Elizabeth Armijo said in an email Thursday evening that the department could not confirm the identifies of the deceased.
“The autopsies are still pending and we, of course, would also not release the identities of the deceased prior to the appropriate family notifications,” she said.
“We understand everyone is wanting more information on this case, but it is going to take a while to ensure that the investigation is done properly and thoroughly.”
In the meantime, the small farming community is coping.
“The community at first was really in shock, because we don’t normally have that kind of violence here in town, and then really saddened because we all know one or more of the victims,” one woman in Dixon said Thursday afternoon. “Just about everyone by now has heard of the incident.”
Staff writer Robert Nott contributed to this report.