Trial scheduled in Mora double shooting, homicide case
A trial date has been set for a man accused of shooting two people in Mora, killing one of them.
On Wednesday, the Fourth Judicial District Court in Las Vegas scheduled a three-day trial to begin Oct. 27, 2020, for Alex H. Pacheco, 24, who is charged with second degree murder and felony aggravated battery.
Pacheco was arrested Oct. 1 following a double shooting on Sept. 28 that, according to New Mexico State Police, resulted in the death of Jermain R. Jennings of Rio Rancho. Ben Montoya Jr., also of Rio Rancho, was wounded in the shooting.
Following his arrest, Pacheco’s bond was set at $200,000, cash only. During a Nov. 4 hearing in District Court, the court ordered Pacheco’s bond to be lowered to $100,000, requiring Pacheco to pay 10 percent of the amount before being released.
Prosecutors agreed to the lower bond amount, but asked the judge to place Pacheco on house arrest with a GPS ankle monitor.
Judge Flora Gallegos ordered Pacheco to be placed on house arrest, but citing that he has no prior criminal history, she denied prosecutors’ request that he wear a GPS monitor.
Judge Gallegos also ruled that Pacheco can live with his girlfriend at a residence in Mora, even though she is a potential witness in the case. However, Pacheco was ordered not to have contact with any other potential witnesses in the case.
Pacheco posted bond on Nov. 7 and was released from the San Miguel County Detention Center where he’d been held since Oct. 1.
In October, NMSP spokesman Dusty Francisco told the Optic that officers responded to the Allsup’s Convenience Store on Main Street in Mora just before 1 a.m. on Sept. 28 where they located two people with gunshot wounds.
Francisco said Jennings was taken to a hospital where he later died, and that Montoya was also transported to a hospital.
He was admitted to an intensive care unit at a hospital in Albuquerque, and later released after treatment for a gunshot wound.
According to an amended criminal complaint filed in San Miguel Magistrate Court in October, the day of the shooting, Pacheco had been sending text messages to Ben Montoya throughout the day. In those text messages, Pacheco was allegedly “calling him names.”
After traveling to Mora from Rio Rancho to visit family, Jennings and Montoya went to Pacheco’s apartment around midnight on Sept. 28. Montoya told police that when he and Jennings knocked on Pacheco’s door, Pacheco answered, said, “I don’t want to talk,” then began shooting.
Pacheco’s girlfriend told police she was asleep in another room when she heard someone kicking at the front door before she heard gunshots.
She told police that Pacheco had told her Montoya and Jennings had “tried to get in.”
NMSP investigators found a bullet casing in the driveway at Pacheco’s apartment, and another casing was found inside the apartment.
Police also located a trail of blood near the driveway.
The vehicle Montoya and Jennings had traveled in was parked in the driveway, and officers found bullet holes in the windshield, as well as another bullet casing near a windshield wiper.
Though the trial will not begin until next fall, a pretrial hearing is slated for March 30 in Las Vegas, and a status hearing has been scheduled for June 15.
Pacheco also faces charges of shooting at or from a motor vehicle, tampering with evidence and negligent use of a deadly weapon.
