SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO: The mother of a New Mexico teen who has been charged with murder, is accused of helping in disposing of the victim’s cell phone and tampering with other evidence, a criminal complaint states. According to the complaint, 45-year-old Rachel Martinez is slapped with two counts of tampering with evidence and two counts of conspiracy to tamper with evidence about the murder of Samuel Cordero, 60.
KRQE News reported that Judah Trujillo was arrested and charged with murder last September. Police claimed that he fatally shot Cordero on August 10 last year in a local park near where Trujillo lived with his mother and stepfather. Trujillo was only 16 years old when he committed the crime.
According to People Magazine, the victim's body was discovered at 4.35 a.m. with an apparent gunshot wound to the head, the complaint states.
Cordero's phone was found in a plastic bag
During the investigation, Cordero’s mother reported him missing when he did not return back from work. The complaint said that Cordero’s sister called his cell phone but it was answered by a man who claimed that he found it on the street in a plastic bag.
On reviewing the surveillance footage in which a gunshot is heard, police said they saw a hooded figure running toward Trujillo’s residence at 2.45 a.m. on August 10 and around 20 minutes later, a car was seen backing out of the driveway of the residence. Authorities then obtained an arrest warrant for Trujillo on September 27, after cell phone data linked his mobile device to the area of the crime.
A subsequent search warrant of Trujillo’s home disclosed the camera footage which showed Martinez leaving the home after 3 am with Trujillo, who apparently held a plastic bag with a cell phone inside.
What did the authorities find while searching the home?
Police found a locked 9 mm gun belonging to Trujillo’s stepfather when they searched the home. However the stepfather informed the authorities that he remembered the key went missing for a week in August before appearing on the floor of the closet. The complaint mentioned the stepfather telling police that it was highly possible for Trujillo to access the gun while the former was at work.
Trujillo tried to lure the victim before the murder
In November last year, Trujillo appeared in court for a dangerousness hearing. He is charged with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence. According to the New Mexican, prosecutors theorized that Trujillo had lured Cordero through the LGBTQ dating app Grindr in an attempt to rob him.
“Mr Trujillo got on the Grindr application … and encountered the alleged victim, Mr. Samuel Cordero, and lured him to Ragle Park, where the state’s theory is that a robbery was in progress,” Assistant District Attorney Ramon Carrillo alleged in court. According to the report, Carrillo alleged Trujillo had posed as a 19-year-old man on Grindr.
However, his attorney declined those claims and said that there was no evidence that Cordero and Trujillo had met through the app. “The state did not produce any evidence that these two individuals ever had contact on the use of Grindr,” defense attorney Les Romaine said.
The charging document alleges that Martinez tampered with the gun and the cell phone in an attempt to “hinder apprehension, prosecution or conviction.” The defendant has a docket call on September 14.
