APD: Deadly shooting suspect burned trying to destroy SUV
The second suspect charged in a deadly shooting at a laundromat parking lot Saturday afternoon was booked into jail Monday night after being treated at the hospital for burn injuries.
Police say Juan Diego Montoya, 37, was burned when he tried to destroy the white Ford Escape the suspects are believed to have been driving during the shooting. Cody Fair, 24, was sitting in the driver’s seat of his car when he was shot and killed in front of Laundry Quarters on Candelaria near 12th NW.
“Just a reminder to criminals if you attempt to destroy evidence of a crime you might burn your face off in the process,” Albuquerque Police Department spokesman Simon Drobik wrote in an email.
Witnesses told detectives Montoya had filled up a gallon jug with gasoline and they left him with the SUV at Cochiti Elementary School. They said a short time later the Ford Escape was engulfed in flames and Montoya had “burn marks.”
Montoya and Jesse James Bowers, 28, are charged with murder, conspiracy and tampering with evidence after police say Montoya shot and killed Fair as he sat in the driver’s seat of his car, ready to leave the laundromat. Witnesses said Bowers had been driving the Ford Escape and Montoya and Montoya’s girlfriend were passengers as they looked for Fair, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. They said Bowers and Fair had fought earlier that morning because Bowers owed Fair $40 and didn’t want to pay it back.
Bowers told detectives Montoya had shot Fair and after the shooting Montoya told his friends “I shot him and saw his head go back” and “the trigger was touchy. I think I killed him,” according to the complaint.