New info revealed concerning deadly shooting

Search warrant affidavit gives account of events before man was shot in his backyard

A search warrant affidavit filed in state District Court sheds new light on what happened in the early morning hours of July 30 when south-central Santa Fe resident Robert J. Romero, 52, was fatally shot in his yard.

According to the document, Romero’s wife told police that he had fallen asleep downstairs in their house on Las Casitas, a cul-de-sac near Herb Martinez Park. She was upstairs, the affidavit says, when she awoke to hear her husband screaming her name.

When Romero’s wife got downstairs, she told police, she saw her husband outside, in a fight with someone wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt. Her husband told her to get help, she said, so she ran inside to call 911 when she heard a gunshot.

Romero, who was a father of two, financial officer for a local real estate firm and well-known mountain biker, suffered “what appeared to be a gunshot wound” on the left side of his chest, the affidavit says. When first responders reached Romero’s home, they found Romero and his wife in the backyard, the document says.

Romero died at the hospital, the document says.

Police, who said the suspect fled from the scene of the shooting, took dozens of items from the home as possible evidence, an inventory shows, including bats, a fire poker and a .357-caliber spent casing.

Santa Fe police asked that anyone in the surrounding neighborhood review home surveillance camera footage recorded between 6 p.m. July 29 and 6 a.m. July 30, and call police dispatchers if they found anything suspicious.

As of Thursday evening, Deputy Chief Ben Valdez said he was not aware of any videos that had been submitted to investigators.

“Right now we’re still working to develop a suspect,” Valdez said, adding that police are following up on a few leads.

He urged Santa Fe residents in any part of town to keep an eye out for prowlers and to call police if they see anything unusual, such as people looking into windows at night.

“We’re concerned, based on the type of crime that occurred,” Valdez said. “We want this person off the street.”