A Deadly Divide: Longstanding landowner feud ends in death, murder charges
As the late-summer sun shone over Mora County on Sept. 12, 2021, someone called 911 just before 10 a.m. to report 66-year-old John F. Serna was dead, the victim of a gunshot wound. Residents in the Ledoux area told police that 70-year-old David V. Griego was the man responsible for Serna’s death.
Earlier this month, Griego was arrested, charged with shooting and killing Serna. This was not the first time police responded to a call involving Griego and Serna, though. In 2016, Serna was charged with battery for striking Griego with a blunt object, and both men were at the center of lawsuits over land disputes years before the September encounter that turned deadly.
A 2005 lawsuit filed in Fourth Judicial District Court concluded when a judge ordered Griego to pay Serna $300 “as a settlement in full for all outstanding issues” between the two men, according to the District Court order.
2016 battery charge
While the 2005 court order settled a financial dispute, it seems the two men continued to quarrel and in July of 2016, police arrested Serna and charged him with aggravated battery. The charge came after NMSP was called to a rural area near Morphy Lake State Park following a dispute over grazing cows.
Griego told police he’d been trying to get his cows off land that belonged to Serna’s family when Serna grabbed “a wooden stick” and struck him on the head, which caused him to lose consciousness, according to a statement of probable cause filed in Mora Magistrate Court in 2016. Serna admitted to striking Griego, telling police that he’d hit him with a flashlight, not a stick.
The case was transferred to District Court in Las Vegas in October 2016. Ultimately, the case was remanded back to Mora Magistrate Court where Serna accepted a plea agreement, pleading guilty to misdemeanor battery. He was ordered to pay $600 in restitution, and was sentenced to probation. He was also ordered to not have any contact with Griego.
Back in court
Griego and Serna were back in court in the summer of 2019 after Griego filed a new lawsuit against Serna seeking compensatory damages for injuries and distress caused as a result of the blow to his head in 2016.
The complaint, filed in District Court on July 11, 2019, referenced that Griego lost consciousness when Serna struck him in the head, and that he’d “suffered ongoing bodily injuries as a result.”
Months later, on Dec. 30, 2019, a different Mora County landowner filed a lawsuit against Griego in Mora Magistrate Court. The complaint, filed by Arnold J. Trujillo, alleged that Griego’s cows had been illegally grazing on his land, and that fencing had been cut and otherwise damaged.
A judge ordered Griego to pay Trujillo $1,097, but Griego appealed the ruling and the case was sent to District Court. In court documents, Serna is identified as a “key witness” in the suit, and a hearing had been scheduled for October of 2021.
Deadly day
On the morning of Sept. 12, 2021, Serna and two other men set out to install a propane tank. The men were headed up CR A042 when an ATV driven by Griego drove toward Serna, according to an affidavit filed in Mora Magistrate Court. The other men continued up the road.
Serna never arrived at the worksite, and one of the men went looking for him. The man found Serna dead, and Griego standing near his body armed with a .38-caliber revolver. Griego told the man he’d shot Serna because Serna had attacked him, according to the affidavit. Two area residents told police they’d heard three gunshots, a brief pause, then one more gunshot.
When NMSP investigators interviewed Griego, he told them that ever since the 2016 battery, he’d been “terrified” of Serna, according to the affidavit.
Griego said he’d been taking cattle to the national forest that September morning, and that he always carried a firearm when doing so. He said he’d pushed his cattle onto a trail on private land — a trail he said he’d been given permission to use — and that when Serna saw him and the cattle on the trail, Serna told him he wasn’t supposed to be on the trail.
Griego told police that Serna climbed off a backhoe he was driving, then began running toward him. Griego said he thought Serna had armed himself with a rock and that he’d threatened to give him “another beating.”
As Serna approached, Griego said he fired a shot at the ground that was meant to scare Serna; however, Serna continued running toward him. Griego fired two more shots, he said, striking Serna at least once.
The Office of the Medical Investigator completed an autopsy on Dec. 16, 2021, and ruled the cause of death to be gunshot wounds to the head and chest, according to the affidavit.
Griego charged
On Jan. 12, four months after Serna was killed, Griego was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, a felony, along with misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass and unlawful carrying of a deadly weapon.
Griego was booked into the San Miguel County Detention Center Jan. 12.
During a Jan. 13 hearing, Judge Melanie Rivera set bond for Griego at $50,000. Griego posted bond and was released from SMCDC later that day. The conditions of release imposed by Judge Rivera require Griego to be on house arrest with a GPS monitor.
Griego is scheduled to appear in Mora Magistrate Court March 11 for a preliminary hearing.
