Young mother’s devotion to kids remembered
Victim in suspected DWI crash ‘liked to make everyone smile’
Karina Leanos and Alan Valenzuela were going to take their kids to the circus on Saturday.
The couple had two children together, and Leanos had two more of her own — in total three boys and a girl, ages 1, 3, 4 and 9.
Valenzuela said they’d been together for four years but had broken up last Tuesday, just three days before Leanos, 27, was killed in a wreck that police say was caused by a drunken driver.
“We were still working things out,” Valenzuela said.
They’d planned to take the kids to the baby sitter Saturday night so they could go out dancing. But all of that changed Friday morning. Leanos was driving west on Lomas on her way to pick up her children after working a night shift at Genesis HealthCare at Las Palomas Center, where she worked as a certified
nursing assistant.
Around 7:45 a.m., Elaine Sandoval, 33, was driving south “at a high rate of speed” on Pennsylvania in a Ford Explorer and struck Leanos’ Pontiac, according to court documents.
Sandoval, who police said smelled of alcohol, is charged with vehicular homicide. If a blood test reveals alcohol impairment, this will not have been Sandoval’s first experience with DWI; her driver’s license had already been revoked because of a prior drunken driving case.
On Friday morning, Valenzuela saw on Facebook that a car that looked like Leanos’ was involved in a wreck.
“That’s when I started calling her,” he said. “She never picked up.”
He called the day-care center to see whether the kids were still there and learned that they had never been picked up.
“That’s when I went over there,” he said, “and an officer told me that she passed away.”
So instead of spending the weekend at the circus and out dancing, Valenzuela stayed home with his children.
“Trying to let it sink in,” he said, his voice breaking. “But I just can’t. I’m still waiting for her to call me or text me.”
He’s watching his children, the 3-year-old and the 1-year-old. The older two children are staying with Leanos’ mother.
Valenzuela said he and Leanos used to talk about the day when they would tell each of their kids about the days they were born. His son was born in a car on the way to the hospital and his daughter was born in his kitchen.
Now he’s trying to figure out what to say when his 3-year-old daughter asks for her mom. He tells her that she’ll be back tomorrow, that they’ll go see her tomorrow.
“She wants to go to her house, she keeps asking for her,” he said. “I don’t know what I should tell her.”
A small group of Leanos’ friends and family gathered at Phil Chacon Park in Southeast Albuquerque on Tuesday afternoon to release balloons in her memory. Some wore T-shirts emblazoned with “Siempre te recordaremos” (“We will always remember you”) and an image of her emblazoned across the back. They played music and said a few words before letting the balloons, many of them heart-shaped, float into the sky.
Those who spoke about Leanos said she was a dedicated mother who worked hard to make sure her kids had everything. When the stress of balancing work and four children caught up to her, she never let it show.
“She liked to make everybody smile even though she was going through a tough time,” said Amanda Florez, her close friend and former sister-in-law. “She never showed it. She was very strong. She didn’t like to talk about her problems.”
Leanos was close to her mother, who visits often but lives in Phoenix, Florez said. But she didn’t have many family members in town, so she and Florez considered each other sisters.
“Sometimes you don’t have to be blood to be family,” Florez said. “I feel like a piece of me was taken because I was so close to her.”
Leanos worked as a laundry attendant before going to school to become a certified nursing assistant. Her coworkers and patients are mourning her death, too.
“It was a heavy loss for everyone. There was quite a bit of tears shed,” said Jeremy Averella, executive director of Genesis HealthCare at Las Palomas Center. “Karina was really someone who kind of lit up the unit.”