Teen tortured
More details come to light in death of 13 year old.
SANTA FE — Court documents filed Thursday provide still more horrible details of the alleged torture a teen endured at the hands of a man who investigators believe beat the boy to death.
Thomas Ferguson, 42, is charged with child abuse resulting in death, tampering with evidence and conspiracy to commit tampering with evidence in the death of 13-year-old Jeremiah Valencia, the son of Ferguson’s girlfriend.
Investigators believe Ferguson killed Jeremiah in late November in the family group’s home near Nambé, and forced his son Jordan Nunez, 19, and Jeremiah’s mother, 35-year-old Tracy Ann Pena, to help dispose of the body.
On Sunday, deputies found remains buried in a plastic storage container off N.M. 503. The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Thursday that the Office of the Medical Investigator had positively identified the body as Jeremiah’s.
The investigation started last week when a prisoner at the county jail reported hearing Pena talking about Jeremiah’s death. Pena and Ferguson have long criminal records and were incarcerated at the jail then.
According to new arrest warrant affidavits, Nunez was interviewed by deputies for a third time Monday. Nunez said Ferguson would beat Jeremiah with brass knuckles, a cane, a homemade spear, a five-pound hammer and steel-toe boots. Ferguson would also lock Jeremiah in a dog kennel and forced him to wear an adult diaper, and would urinate on Jeremiah, Nunez said.
Nunez said Ferguson used the homemade spear to apply pressure to Jeremiah’s neck and lift him up against the wall, one time causing him to lose consciousness. “The torture was astronomical and sometimes done for no apparent reason,” a detective’s affidavit says. Nunez said some of the torture implements were at a storage unit in Santa Fe, which court documents say has now been searched by investigators.
Nunez said that in the November beating that resulted in Jeremiah’s death, Ferguson began punching Jeremiah in the face and body, and dragged the boy around the house. “Jordan told me that Thomas was punching Jeremiah so hard that Jeremiah’s teeth may have fallen out,” Detective Ernest Alderete wrote.
Ferguson wrapped his hands around Jeremiah’s neck and held his entire body up against the wall, and turned the boy upside down and slammed his head against the floor two or three times, Nunez said. Ferguson forced a “lifeless” Jeremiah into a dog cage in Ferguson’s room.
Nunez said Ferguson pointed a sawn-off shotgun at him and forced him to help with the body. Ferguson put Jeremiah’s body on a futon in Jeremiah’s room and cleaned off blood, then Ferguson and Nunez went to a nearby Family Dollar, where Ferguson stole plastic material, duct tape and rubber gloves, the affidavit says. Ferguson later forced Jeremiah’s body into a plastic storage container, taped it shut and left it in the garage for two days before it was buried, the affidavit says.
Ferguson has maintained that Jeremiah was injured during roughhousing with Nunez and Pena’s 13-year-old daughter, who has said she also witnessed the fatal beating.