Trial begins for man accused of killing World Cup Café owner
The jury trial for Gregg Steele – the man accused of killing World Cup Café owner Patrick Larkin in 2019 – began Tuesday (Feb. 16) after a full day of jury selection on Monday. The trial, which is taking place in Ratón due to the high profile nature of the case, is being simultaneously live-streamed to the Taos County Courthouse.
Steele is charged with second degree murder, a second degree felony; two counts of tampering with evidence – one for hiding the weapon and one for moving Larkin’s body – both third degree felonies; and one count of armed robbery, a second degree felony, for taking Larkin’s .22 caliber rifle.
The case is being prosecuted by Consuelo Garcia, attorney for the Eighth Judicial District, and Steele
is being represented by Thomas Clark, out of Santa Fe. Eighth Judicial District Court Judge Jeffrey Shannon is presiding over the trial. The live-streamed trial started off in Taos with some technical difficulties, but was underway by 9:15 a.m. on Tuesday.
In opening statements, Garcia pleaded with the jury to realize Steele’s guilt, saying that this was not a self-defense case but a murder, and that though Steele said he had an intention to take Larkin to the hospital, Garcia believes that not to be true.
Clark proceeded to remind the jury not to rely on speculation or conjecture, and not to rely on “some woven tale by a government lawyer.” Clark framed the circumstances around the murder as an unfortunate violent confrontation between two men, and one that ended with Steele shooting Larkin in self-defense.
Several facts are undisputed: Larkin left his house off Cuchilla Road in Ranchos de Taos in the middle of a 2019 August night to find one of his goats mauled to death. He fired several shots in the air, and two shell casings were found to corroborate this. At some point, an encounter between Larkin and Steele ended with Larkin’s death and his body’s relocation, as admitted by Steele. The rest of the facts remain up to the jury to decide.
Testimony from Agent William Terrazas, the lead case agent, and Sgt. Alexander Bennett – both with the New Mexico State Police – set the stage, describing in lengthy detail the processes they went through in working on the case.
Both Terrazas and Bennett described the location where Larkin’s body was found – approximately 20 feet off of Cuchilla Road in the sagebrush. They both described a path leading to the area of Larkin’s body that seemed consistent with someone dragging the body. However, Steele maintains that he was simply driving with Larkin’s body when he hit a bump in the road and the body fell out of the car. Steele said he left the scene out of fear of other nearby vehicles, but said he did not drag the body into the sagebrush.
A good deal of time was also spent describing Larkin’s property and its location to the property Steele was staying on at the time, owned by Gil John Tafoya. If the incident took place on Tafoya’s property, Larkin would have had to cross two fences and a creek in order to get to where Steele was staying, or vice versa.
Several tapes were played that were recorded by Sgt. Bennett in which Steele accompanied him to show him where various evidence was located. Steele had led Bennett to a culvert where he found a blanket that was used to cover Larkin’s body, and was later found to have Larkin’s DNA on it. Steele also took Bennett to the “horseshoe” on State Road 68, where Steele said he had disposed of the pistol that he used to shoot Larkin. The gun was not recovered, then, and has still not been found.
The day ended with an emotional testimony from Andrea Meyer, Larkin’s partner of 12 years. Meyer described the events of the day leading up to the incident, saying that it was a fairly normal day. She said a friend was staying with them and the three of them had consumed a bottle of wine. She described waking up and slowly realizing there was something wrong.
Meyer said she was comforted by many friends, and that they had started to perform various searches of the property ahead of the arrival of the search and rescue team as she began to worry more and more. She described the moment that the leader of the search and rescue team told her they had found Larkin’s body, and how it had made her feel. She also spoke about Larkin’s nonviolent nature, and the fact he only had the .22 caliber rifle for shooting at vermin.
Wednesday started with additional testimony from state witnesses including Dan Broadhurst, the friend who was staying with Larkin and Meyer at the time of Larkin’s death; BLM Officer Justin Dean, who helped with the search and found Larkin’s body; and members of the Taos County Sheriff’s office, including Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe.
Several witnesses are scheduled to testify on behalf of the state as of press time, then the defense will have its chance to call witnesses. With the number of witnesses and the speculative nature of the case, the trial looks set to easily take up the whole week, possibly longer.