Headed to jury
Deliberations set to begin in trial of police killing suspect Andrew Romero
LOS LUNAS — It’s been nearly a year and a half since the shooting and two weeks since the trial started, and today Andrew Romero’s future will be in a jury’s hands.
Romero’s defense team presented its entire case to a jury on Thursday, bringing a close to the trial, which started Sept. 8 in Valencia County before 13th Judicial District Judge George Eichwald. Closing arguments will be made this morning, and then the jury will begin deliberations.
Romero is charged with firstdegree murder and lesser offenses in the death of Rio Rancho police officer Gregg Benner, who was shot and killed during a traffic stop near Southern and Pinetree on May 25, 2015.
Benner was shot in the back of both shoulders and back of the leg, according to testimony from the Office of the Medical Investigator. One bullet pierced his lungs, heart and kidneys.
Prosecutors said that Romero, a passenger in a Dodge Durango, fatally shot Benner and then fled. Romero was arrested about five hours later in the South Valley.
Romero’s attorneys on Thursday called a DNA expert who criticized the state’s handling of DNA evidence and raised questions about DNA found on the gun and Dodge Durango used in the shooting. The defense team also called witnesses who described statements that Tabitha Littles, Romero’s former girlfriend, made shortly after the shooting that contradicted what she said during trial.
There was a mixture of DNA from at least three people on the steering wheel of the Durango and DNA from
at least two people on the handgun used to kill Benner, said Michael Spence, a forensic scientist hired by the defense team.
The primary DNA sample on both items was a match to Romero, Spence said, and the other people were never identified. He said that if police had taken samples from additional people, they could have determined who else has touched the gun and the steering wheel.
Spence also challenged the procedures the Department of Public Safety used in analyzing DNA evidence on the handgun.
He said the lab put a sample of Romero’s DNA on the same tray that contained samples taken from the firearm. That created the possibility that the evidence samples could have been contaminated by Romero’s DNA sample.
“It’s an enormous, unnecessary risk,” Spence said.
The defense on Thursday also called two Rio Rancho firefighters who spoke with Littles after Benner was shot. She originally said she told the firefighters that she had been carjacked by a woman and a man who later shot Benner when he pulled Littles’ vehicle over.
Littles said earlier in the trial that she lied immediately after the shooting and that she was actually driving Romero to rob a fast-food restaurant when she was stopped and Romero opened fire on Benner.
“There were a lot of holes in her story,” Rio Rancho firefighter Elliott Guinn said. “The details were very inconsistent.”