Triple homicide case goes to jury

Defense says prosecution witness is the real killer of El Rancho family

SANTA FE — Attorneys have said all they can say in the triple homicide trial of Nicholas Ortiz, and now the jury must decide if the man who was just 16 when three members of an El Rancho family were killed on Father’s Day five years ago should be found guilty of the murders.

In closing arguments Wednesday, the defense offered an alternate theory — that a prosecution witness who was with Ortiz the night of the triple homicide is the real killer. But a prosecutor reminded the jury that Ortiz, who didn’t testify during the weeklong trial, had admitted he’d committed the murders, according to testimony by two other witnesses not involved in the crime.

Nicholas Ortiz, 21, is accused of killing Lloyd Ortiz, 55, Dixie Ortiz, 53, and 21-year-old Stephen Ortiz in their El Rancho home in the early-morning hours of June 19, 2011, with what attorneys have described as a large pickax or mattock digging tool. The state District Court jury will begin deliberations at 8:30 a.m. today.

Nicholas Ortiz — who is not related to the victims but lived with Lloyd and Dixie Ortiz’s daughter and her family next door to the Ortiz house for a few months — is believed to have conspired to burglarize the family’s house north of

Santa Fe with first-cousins Ashley Roybal and Jose Roybal. Jose Roybal said in court that he backed out at the scene and Nicholas went into the house by himself.

The Roybals both testified last Monday and gave two different versions of events that night, but special prosecutor Angela “Spence” Pacheco told the jury in closing arguments Wednesday that their stories provide the same conclusion: Nicholas Ortiz did it.

“Neither one of their stories were the same, but you look at the consistencies,” Pacheco said. “They both said Nicholas had a pickax, and they both said they were wearing socks and plastic bags on their hands and feet . ... What do you do when you look for the truth? You look for the consistencies.”

But defense attorney Dan Marlowe told the jury that the differences in the Roybals’ accounts show that they aren’t credible witnesses. “The only thing they agree on was that it was Nick,” Marlowe said. “Everything else is different.”

Marlowe even offered the theory that Jose Roybal committed the murders. Marlowe brought up Tuesday’s testimony from Jose’s cousin, Alyssa Roybal, who said Jose came over to her house some time after the murders and showed her a tattoo that Jose said represented the “three souls he took.”

During the trial, former State Police Agent Paul Chavez testified that the attacker was right-handed based on the way the blood splattered. Case agent Sgt. Kraig Bobnock said he observed that Jose Roybal was left-handed and Nicholas Ortiz was right-handed. Marlowe, however, tried to persuade the jury that the strikes that killed the Ortizes were actually delivered by a left-handed assailant. “Maybe (Jose Roybal) went in there, and maybe he’s the one that did those left-handed blows.”

Pacheco noted that Nicholas Ortiz was said to have confided in others that he committed the murders. Erik Zubia-Talavera, who was part of a tightknit group with Nicholas Ortiz and Jose Roybal in 2011, testified that he spoke with Nicholas the day the Ortizes’ bodies were discovered and said Nicholas told him he killed them. Gregorio Trujillo, now in prison for an unrelated case and Ashley Roybal’s cousin, said he overheard Nicholas saying he murdered the Ortizes at a party at Trujillo’s house. “His own words keep coming back to him,” Pacheco said. “He can’t get away from his own words. His own words are going to take him down.”

Marlowe countered by saying that the jury shouldn’t convict Nicholas, who Marlowe says faces 112 years in prison, simply on the words of others and with a lack of physical evidence. “I think it’s a ‘not guilty’ here because the state has not proven its case at all,” Marlowe said.