Feds: Range of weapons used to torture homicide victim

FBI team finds sword, machete, broomsticks, flashlight at scene

SANTA FE — Allister Danzig Quintana of Dulce appeared in federal court in Albuquerque on Wednesday on murder and kidnapping charges in a case in which he’s accused of torturing his male victim using a variety of weapons.

Quintana, initially charged last year, now faces a superseding indictment that includes counts of first-degree murder, kidnapping resulting in death and conspiracy to commit kidnapping.

According to a criminal complaint and a new indictment, Quintana, 25, tortured and killed the victim at Quintana’s home on Feb. 3, 2018, apparently with the help of at least one accomplice.

Quintana is said to have used a machete, broken broomsticks, a flashlight and a sword to assault the victim, who is not identified in court documents. One of the people interviewed as the FBI investigated the death said Quintana and the dead man had fought in the past over the man’s relationship with Quintana’s mother.

The Jicarilla Apache Police Department found the body in a closet during a search of Quintana’s home on Feb. 14, 2018. The victim’s hands and feet were bound, and dried blood was found in several places in the home.

Law enforcement officers later determined that Quintana sent a message by social media to another person shortly before the murder, saying that he “was about to kill someone.” A medical examiner ruled the victim’s death was a homicide.

The new indictment, filed Feb. 13, says Quintana asked “others known and unknown to assault” the victim, and that Quintana and others hit the victim with their fists. Quintana also asked others to “bring him a flashlight and machete” to use on the victim and electrical cord to bind the man who was killed. Quintana assaulted the man with “a flashlight, sword, stick and machete,” the indictment reads.

The dead man is identified in court documents only as T.H., with a birth year of 1989.

An FBI team found what appeared to be dried blood throughout the residence. A hand-made wooden stool was in the middle of a back bedroom that had otherwise been cleared of furniture. “A significant amount of what appeared to be dried blood was splattered on the floor surrounding the stool,” the FBI court complaint states.

Also found were “what appeared to be improvised weapons” — broken broomsticks, with one end of each stick “having black cloth wrapped in silver duct tape” — also with dried blood on them.

After the homicide and before his arrest, when Quintana was in the Jicarilla Apache jail in Dulce on a separate matter, he told another inmate that he and “Andrew” had tortured and killed someone, tied that person up and put the bound body in a closet, according to the complaint.

Quintana is in custody awaiting trial. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.