Two women charged in death
Daughter-in-law, roommate were evicted by 65-year-old victim in January
When Alissa Bickett spoke to the Journal in February, she said she couldn’t think of a single person who would want to hurt her motherin-law, Marilyn Gandert — this after Gandert’s body was found stabbed, beaten and torched in a remote mesa west of Rio Rancho.
Now Bickett, 43, and Annie Rael, 28, are each charged with an open count of murder and tampering with evidence in connection with 65-year-old Gandert’s death.
Police say Gandert evicted Rael, Bickett, Veronica Patterson and Bickett’s son, Drake, from her northwest Albuquerque home on Jan. 23 and the two women killed her inside the home on Jan. 26. Afterward, they took her body to a remote area of Sandoval County and set it on fire.
A passerby found Gandert’s charred remains on a burned mattress on the mesa west of Rio Rancho on Jan. 27.
An autopsy found Gandert had been beaten and stabbed nearly a dozen times before she was set on fire.
A police spokesman said detectives are looking into the possibility that others may have been involved in Gandert’s murder.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, Gandert’s brother reported her missing on Jan. 28 after not being able to get hold of her.
Neighbors told police they last saw Gandert at the house the morning of Jan. 26, while Rael, Bickett and her son, Drake, moved their belongings out.
Around noon, police say, a neighbor heard a heated argument happening inside the home but did not go inside
because she “did not want to get in the middle of that.”
Video surveillance shows Gandert’s and Rael’s trucks leaving the neighborhood a few hours later, and one of them had a box spring mattress in the pickup’s bed.
According to the complaint, detectives found blood inside the home and, using a solution that detects cleaned blood, found a large amount in Rael’s room and on a metal pushcart.
Police say they also found blood in the pickup bed of Rael’s truck, and Gandert’s purse, medicine and postal uniform pants inside the truck.
During questioning, both Rael and Bickett told police they did not know what happened to Gandert.
Skyla Bickett, who is Alissa Bickett’s daughter, told the Journal in February that she was shocked to learn someone had killed her grandmother.
Now Skyla Bickett said she doesn’t know what to think.
“I don’t want to believe that it’s true,” she said of the possibility that her mother killed her grandmother. “It seems like it is.”
Bickett said she doesn’t know why her mother would kill Gandert and an eviction doesn’t seem like enough of a reason.
“For the most part they got along pretty well,” she said.
Bickett said the two would argue, though nothing out of the ordinary between a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law.
Court documents show Bickett and Gandert had property disputes dating back to 2015 involving the northwest Albuquerque home Bickett had shared with Gandert’s only son, Ryan Bickett, until he took his own life in 2014.
Gandert filed a complaint in December 2017, stating that Bickett “stopped paying rent, not paying full rent, and having unauthorized people living in house plus not paying gas and electric.”
Bickett did not show up for court and the judge ruled in favor of Gandert, ordering Bickett removed from the home, which was carried out by a Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office deputy on Jan. 23.
Skyla Bickett said the last time she saw her grandmother, she was with her mother at the home after Gandert had evicted Alissa Bickett over not paying rent and trashing the home.
“They were moving stuff out,” she said. “They didn’t seem like they were fighting.”
Skyla Bickett said she had spoken with her mother since Gandert’s death, seeking advice on how the granddaughter should handle the two homes Gandert left her.