Murderer wants to be released over coronavirus fears
Santa Fe man is serving two life sentences for fatally shooting tenant, teenager in 2012
A Santa Fe man serving two life sentences for fatally shooting his tenant and her daughter’s teenage boyfriend in 2012 during a dispute over unpaid rent is asking to be released from prison due to the threat of COVID-19.
Arthur Anaya, 57 — who was convicted of multiple violent crimes and spent time in a mental health facility before the 2012 killings — also says he was wrongly convicted of murder and is seeking a new trial.
“Author John Grisham’s book titled The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town can help clear my name,” Anaya wrote in his Dec. 21 motion, referring to a true crime book about an unrelated case.
State District Judge T. Glenn Ellington is scheduled to consider the motion during a public hearing at 2:45 p.m. Tuesday.
According to news reports from the time of the killings, Anaya had broken into the mobile home he rented to Theresa Vigil, 51, and her 17-year-old daughter Natalie Vigil in January 2012 armed with a .38 caliber revolver. He was seeking $100 in unpaid rent and struck both women, the reports said.
When Natalie Vigil’s boyfriend, 16-year-old Austin Urban, emerged from a bedroom and punched Anaya, reports said, Anya shot the teen boy in the mouth and then turned the gun on Theresa Vigil, shooting her in the forehead. He ordered Natalie Vigil and another teenage boy at the home to load the bodies into the trunk of his car, according to reports.
Natalie Vigil convinced Anaya to let her take her mother to a local hospital, but the woman did not survive.
Anaya eluded police for four days after the killings. Officers eventually found him hiding in an abandoned mobile home.
“Given what we know about Mr. Anaya’s mental health history, I’m pretty certain mental health issues will play a significant role in this case,” Anaya’s defense attorney for the case, Tom Clark, said at the time.
In 2005, Anaya was sentenced to 18 years in prison for convictions on felony counts including the attempted murder of his sister. He spent years at the New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute in Las Vegas before he was found competent to stand trial.
But Anaya was deemed competent to stand trial fairly quickly in the 2012 homicides. He was convicted by a jury in May 2013 of two counts of first-degree murder and several other charges.
The New Mexico Supreme Court upheld Anaya’s convictions in 2015.
Court records show he has filed multiple challenges to his convictions, several of which have been dismissed without a hearing based on the lack of new information that would justify a new trial.
The Public Defender’s Office in Santa Fe has appointed an attorney to represent Anaya on Tuesday in what appears to be his first hearing in front of a judge since his sentencing.
Under current COVID-19 restrictions, Anaya likely will participate in the hearing via videoconference from the Northeast New Mexico Correctional facility in Clayton, where he is incarcerated.
As of Monday, 166 inmates at the facility had tested positive for COVID-19.
The Public Defender’s Office was closed Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and Anaya’s defense attorney, Jasmine Solomon, could not be reached for comment.
District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said in an email her office is “strongly opposed” to the motion.
The American Civil Liberties Union and criminal defense attorneys throughout the state have argued for large numbers of prisoners to be released in light of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Reducing inmate populations enough to allow social distancing would slow the spread of the disease in jails and prisons, advocates argue, and protect the lives of inmates who are too dangerous for release.