Ortiz gets 25 years in El Rancho slayings
Prosecutors had sought 75 years of prison time for 24-year-old in 2011 killings of 3 members of family
State District Judge Francis J. Mathew sentenced Nicholas Ortiz to 25 years in prison Monday for murdering three members of an El Rancho family with a five-pound mattock.
The sentencing could mark the end of a case that dragged on for more than eight years of investigations, multiple trials and appeals after a family member discovered the grisly murder scene in the victims’ home in June 2011.
“You have been convicted of these crimes based upon testimony that was at times conflicting and unbelievable,” the judge said when pronouncing Ortiz’s sentence. “But nonetheless, you have been convicted.”
Prosecutors had sought 75 years for the 24-year-old Pojoaque-area resident, who faced a maximum sentence of more than 93 years. But Mathew said state and federal law prohibited him from issuing a maximum sentence because Ortiz was just 16 at the time of the crime.
A jury convicted Ortiz in 2016 of murdering Lloyd Ortiz, 55, his wife Dixie Ortiz, 53, and their special needs son, Steven Ortiz, 21, in what evidence indicated began as a burglary plot involving two other suspects.
The judge sentenced Ortiz to 25 years for each slaying, plus three years for a conspiracy charge, but, because the judge ordered the sentences to run concurrently, if Ortiz receives credit for time served he would have to spend less than 25 years in prison to complete his sentence.
Ortiz spoke publicly Monday for
the first time since the killings, saying he took a wrong turn early in life but has since found God and changed his ways.
He continued to maintain his innocence, saying, “I’ve come a long way from the child I was at 16 to the man I am at 24 today. I know I made some mistakes early on. … I’m very sorry for the heartbreak everyone has had to endure. I did not do what I am facing my life because of today.”
Ortiz is not related to his victims but was a frequent guest in their home.
After his first trial ended in a hung jury, he was convicted of three counts of felony first-degree murder at his second trial, based primarily on the words of his co-defendants — cousins Ashley Roybal, who was 24 at the time of the killings, and Jose Roybal, who was then 15.
Ortiz sat stone-faced through most of his Monday’s hearing, succumbing to tears only when his lawyers played a video of his father asking for mercy.
But eight years, four months and 10 days worth of heartbreak, pain and anger flooded from the eyes of the victims’ relatives and friends Monday as they described how the murders devastated not only their family, but the El Rancho community.
The couple’s daughter, Cherie Ortiz-Rios, described finding her parents’ bodies that Father’s Day evening as “the start of a really, really long ride through hell.”
Ortiz-Rios said she had grown up feeling safe and secure in the rural community about a half-hour north of Santa Fe. “We lived with our keys in the car,” she said. “We didn’t even lock our doors.”
Everything changed, she said, after she discovered her family members so brutally bludgeoned that she couldn’t tell her father from her brother.
Because the police didn’t arrest Nicholas Ortiz until four years later, she said, “We didn’t even know who to be afraid of. We didn’t know if it was the person sitting next to us in church, or the person passing us on the road. So we were angry and on guard and scared with everybody.”
“We are now locking our doors,” OrtizRios
said. “I now have six German shepherds who are on my property to bark and we sleep with guns by our heads. We never did that before.
“He didn’t just go in and take their lives,” she said. “He committed something that was disgusting and inhumane.”
The investigation and prosecution has been controversial since the bodies were discovered. New Mexico State Police didn’t publicly name Ortiz as a suspect and charge him until 2015.
There was no DNA evidence, blood evidence, fingerprints or shoe prints connecting Ortiz to the crime scene. The state’s case against him was based almost entirely on testimony by the Roybal cousins and their versions of events were not identical.
The cousins told investigators they had conspired with Ortiz to steal from the family’s home, saying Ortiz was familiar with the residence and knew there was money and medical marijuana plants there.
But when it came to explaining how a burglary plot became a plan to commit murder, their stories diverged.
Jose Roybal, who was given immunity in exchange for his testimony, said Ashley Roybal had suggested the boys kill the family rather than wait for them to leave the home so they could burglarize it.
He said Ashley Roybal drove the boys toward the victims’ home and dropped them off, but that after she left, he changed his mind and ran home, leaving Nicholas Ortiz to carry out the killings alone.
Ashley Roybal, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary and tampering with evidence as part of a plea deal that called for her to spend about 10 years in prison, disputed her cousin’s version of the events and denied ever suggesting the boys commit murder.
Defense attorney Stephen Taylor’s face reddened and his voice cracked as he spoke Monday about problems with the way the case had been handled — from state prosecutors failing to charge the Roybals as accessories to murder to the failure of Nicholas Ortiz’ first lawyer to advise the defendant he would have been sentenced as a juvenile to no more than two years if he had been convicted of voluntary manslaughter instead.
The lawyer’s frustration was palpable when the state’s only witness during the sentencing hearing, New Mexico state police case agent Kraig Bobnock, said he did not believe Ashley Roybal had pressured Nicholas Ortiz to carry out the murders.
“Are you for real?” Taylor demanded. “Are you serious? Are you saying you bought her story hook line and sinker? … You’re saying a 24-year-old woman telling a 15-year-old boy and a 16-year-old boy to ‘kill them’ is not peer influence?”
“She said she didn’t say that,” Bobnock replied.
“But your other witness said she did,” Taylor countered. “So somebody is lying.”
George Davis, a clinical psychologist from the University of New Mexico who prepared a presentence report on Ortiz, testified Monday that peer pressure has been shown to be one of the most predominant factors in crimes committed by juveniles and that peer pressure was a factor in the case.
Davis also testified that in his estimation, Ortiz “lacked dangerousness” and was “not irreparably corrupt.”
Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Padgett declined to comment following the hearing Monday.
District Attorney Marco Serna later said in an email:
“I am disappointed that the Court’s sentence seemingly accounts for one, and not all three, of the victims who lost their lives as a result of the Defendant’s senseless and vicious act. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Lloyd, Dixie and Stephen who have displayed valiant strength and bravery through this long and arduous criminal justice process — I hope that closing this chapter brings some solace to the family and the El Rancho community.”
Ortiz-Rios seemed resigned following the hearing, saying she was “upset” about the length of time Ortiz had gotten but glad he had finally been sentenced.
“It’s kind of what’s expected in New Mexico,” she said.
Although Ortiz has an automatic right to appeal, there was no discussion Monday about whether he would file an appeal.