Back in 2011, the state of New Mexico was shaken by the news of a family's triple murder. While the state has not been plagued with musch violence, the news left several residents worried. After bringing the man responsible for the crime to trial, after the first mistrial result, prosecutors are ready to bring the man to justice.
According to FOX News Latino, it took four years for authorities to arrest Nicholas Ortiz for a grisly triple-murder in El Rancho, New Mexico, but only 6 months to bring him to trial again after his first one ended in a mistrial.
The site reports that on Father’s Day in 2011, a family of three – Lloyd Ortiz, 55, his wife Dixie Ortiz, 53, and their son Steven Ortiz, 21, who are not related to Nicholas – were savagely murdered with a mattock, a digging tool similar to a pickaxe. Four years later police arrested 21-year-old Ortiz for the murders, but after a mistrial last June, he went on trial again Tuesday.
The first trial resulted in a mistrial due to conflicts between the jurors. In the first trial, jurors deliberated for more than three days before telling Santa Fe District Court Judge Francis Mathew they were unable to reach a verdict in the case. At the time, only eight of the 12 jurors voted to convict Ortiz, who was only 16 at the time of the murders.
Prosecutors reveal that Ortiz, along with 15-year-old Jose Roybal, at the time of the murders, and his 23-year-old cousin Ashley Roybal at the time of the murders, colluded to rob the Ortiz’s family home, hoping to steal money and marijuana.
Cherie Ortiz-Rio, daughter of Lloyd and Dixie Ortiz told the Albuquerque Journal that her parents had treated Nicholas like family, and the teen lived with them for several months before leaving on shaky terms.
Court testimony also revealed that Ortiz stole from the family more than once, taking a .22 caliber gun and a water jug full of coins, and got kicked out by the family.
In his defense, Dan Marlowe, Ortiz’s attorney, told jurors the case against his client “is not quite as clean and quite as pure as the state would have you believe.”
Marlowe informed the court that it was actually Roybal who supplied the murder weapon, a large, double-bladed mattock that belonged to her grandfather. She dropped the two boys off outside the Ortiz home, and then, according to Deputy District Attorney Jason Lidyard, Jose “chickened out” and ran away, leaving Nicholas alone to commit the crime.
Lidyard described the murders, beginning with the death of Lloyd, who was killed in the yard, after he awoke to check on why the dogs were barking.
“In the dark, he is struck,” Lidyard said according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. “Across his head, across his body, by a pickaxe wielded by the defendant. And he is struck over and over again until he collapses under one of those evergreen trees.”
During the original trial, Roybal testified that Ashley picked up Ortiz after the murders and took him back to her grandfather's house. He said Ortiz looked like he had “seen a ghost.”
Nicholas told him he’d been confronted by Steven Ortiz after leaving the bedroom and fought until he succumbed to several blows.
“Steven wouldn’t die,” Roybal quoted Ortiz as saying.
Marlowe also told jurors that Roybal said it was Ashley’s idea to murder the family, an allegation she denies. He also said that the cousins gave conflicting testimonies to police about whether or not Ortiz was covered in blood following the murders or simply had spots of blood on him.
“These are little things, but when you start adding them up, they get bigger,” Marlowe said, telling jurors that by the end of the retrial they would be asking themselves, “Wow! Who did this?”
With so much back and forth with he say she say, this time around the prosecution is hoping to pull out a win. The retrial is scheduled to last until Dec. 9.
Stay tuned.
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