Ribera man held in wife’s killing
The boy said Lussow intervened in the dispute, striking Padilla, who then grabbed an AR-15 next to the driver’s seat, chambered a round and shot her in the head.
Padilla “said three words to her, then pulled [the] trigger,” the boy told police. The complaint does not include the words Padilla might have spoken before his wife was hit by gunfire.
Padilla told police the shooting happened in the midst of a struggle for the gun.
He claimed he had “made threatening physical gestures” toward the boy but did not hit him, police wrote in the complaint. While he and Lussow were arguing, Padilla told police, he “saw the gun rise up next to him.” He and Lussow were struggling over it, and then it “went off ” and Lussow was shot, he said.
Police found an unfired round on the driver’s-side floorboard, indicating the charging handle on the gun had been pulled, the complaint says.
After the shooting, Padilla took his wife to a hospital nearby.
He is being held in the Sandoval County jail.
Prosecutors from the 13th Judicial District Attorney’s Office plan to file a motion asking a judge to order him jailed until his trial, a spokeswoman said.
Court records chronicle a troubling series of alleged domestic disputes in the couple’s household.
In 2020, when the couple lived in Rio Rancho, Lussow told police Padilla had punched her in the face and threw a remote control at her, court records say. Padilla faced a charge of battery, but the case was dismissed several months later. A dismissal order filed in Sandoval County Magistrate Court says the “victim does not wish to pursue charges against defendant.”
The following year, at least two incidents brought police back to the couple’s residence in Rio Rancho. Police alleged in a criminal complaint filed in May 2021 Padilla was carrying the couple’s 5-month-old baby when he kicked a door in, injuring Lussow, and shoved her other child into a dresser before driving off with the baby in his lap.
Two months later, another complaint alleged Padilla was again holding the baby when he kicked down a door in the house. Charges of child abuse and criminal damage to property were dismissed in both cases.
A dismissal order from the May 2021 case states the “officer failed to appear” for a hearing. An order from the July 2021 case states only that prosecutors were “unable to proceed.”
Chief Deputy District Attorney Jessica Martinez of the 13th Judicial District Attorney’s Office said prosecutors were unable to contact Lussow to move the case forward.
“When we called the number we had for the victim, the defendant answered,” Martinez said.
Lussow filed a petition for an emergency restraining order against Padilla the day after the July incident, court records show, but the order expired after 72 hours, and the case was dismissed when no further action was taken.
On Thursday, the day after Lussow’s death, a woman wrote a comment on her Facebook page under a post in 2020 announcing her engagement to Padilla.
“Sweet lady, you meant so much more than you knew,” the woman wrote. “I begged you and I warned you of staying. I am so sorry to all your sweet children, may you rest in peace.”