In 2006, Melissa Romero was found shot to death on a couch at 302 E Reed St., Roswell. In 2015, four people were found shot in the home, only one of whom survived. What the hell is going on at this house?
Unfortunately, the goings-on at this tiny, unassuming house in South Roswell offer a glimpse into the cruel consequences of drugs, gangs, and domestic violence. Despite its humble appearance and its alien-driven tourism, crime is rife in Roswell. The people caught up in it are its victims, innocent or not-so-innocent.
Melissa Romero
Melissa was a pretty young woman who was loved by many. All through childhood, Eric Contreras crushed on her. When she finally fell in love with him, things moved fast. Melissa moved in with him at his childhood home, 302 E Reed St., and gave him two beautiful children, Eric Robert Jr. and Mariah.
At first, Melissa was into partying and drugs, but she got clean as soon as she learned her son was growing in her womb. She was a loving and doting mother. She also loved Eric, but he could be very violent, even pulling a gun on her sometimes when she didn’t do exactly what he wanted.
When Eric Jr. was 15 months, he toddled off the porch and straight into a swollen irrigation ditch, drowning to death. Part of Melissa died that day. She held on for the sake of little Mariah, however. Nevertheless, her life was taken from her less than a year after losing little Eric. She was so young and had already been through so much, only to die a brutal death.
At 3 am, April 15, 2006, neighbors reported shots fired at 302 E Reed St. Police arrived to find that nobody was in the area. They left, only to get another call from Eric Contreras, saying that his “wife” Melissa had been shot. Police thus returned to the residence.
Despite calling the police, Eric Contreras and his cousin Fred refused to allow the cops entry to the home. They were cussing at the cops and getting violent. In the police report, Contreras is listed as a known gang member. Police had to call backup and obtain a warrant to enter the home, where they discovered Melissa, lying face-up on the couch. She had been shot in the neck, with a large exit wound on her back, soaking the left upper side of her body in blood. Police noted she had an enlarged stomach and thought she might be pregnant. This was never confirmed and I’m not sure she actually was.
Nine bullet holes in the door of the residence and the tall wooden fence out front suggested a drive-by. Miraculously, none of the bullets hit little Mariah, who was only one and sleeping in the residence. Officers noted that the house was small and filthy with dog poop on the floor.
Police combed the home and found guns in the kitchen trashcan. Eric was a felon and should not have had guns in his possession. Nevertheless, police didn’t test Eric for gunpowder residue or collect his blood-soaked clothes, so Eric was never officially proved innocent. It was just assumed this was a drive-by shooting by the bullet holes outside. Police did ask Eric to take a polygraph seven times, which he always refused. The lack of police action to investigate Eric properly makes me wonder if he had kin in the police force or some sort of dirt on a higher-up, thus protecting him.
Eric initially told police he had been driving around with friends when he heard about shots on the scanner. Two hours after giving this statement, he changed his story to say that he had been at a “getting out of prison” party for his buddy, Ricky Salazar, when his cousin ran in and said that he had heard about shots on the scanner. So it is unclear where exactly Eric was when Melissa was shot.
Eric claimed that the “East Side Gang” had murdered Melissa. But police released a statement to the press that they believed the murder was the result of a family feud. It is not clear how they got that idea. Melissa’s mother, Joan Hughes, has her own opinion about what probably happened to her daughter that day.
Joan went to the crime scene that morning and she was surprised to see Eric’s GMC Yukon parked perfectly in the driveway. This made no sense to her, given Eric’s story of rushing home. Why would he park the vehicle so precisely if he was terrified and in a huge hurry to enter the home?
Joan later came by again to inspect the home and found that the location of the bullet holes in the door did not add up with the entry wound on Melissa’s neck. She said that Melissa had to have been shot in the back, given the position of the couch where she was lying relative to the door. Eric Contreras became upset with her and insisted that Melissa had been shot in the neck. The autopsy confirmed this was true.
Melissa also began to show signs of bruising after embalming. The bruising appeared on her head and left shoulder. At first I thought maybe she had been mishandled after death, as Eric admitted to repositioning her body when he found her. But then I read that a body cannot possibly bruise postmortem due to lack of a functioning circulatory system. Those bruises had to have happened before she died. Had she been lying down on the couch after a beating, perhaps by Eric? The other explanation is the bruises may have been the result of postmortem blood pooling. But embalming usually does a good job of hiding that and making the body presentable. So that adds another mystery to this case.
Initially, Eric Contreras grieved with the family and helped them pick a casket and plan the funeral. Joan said the family accepted him as a grieving son-in-law. But soon, things started to not add up. When Joan overheard Eric whispering to little Mariah, “Nobody will take you away from me now” at Melissa’ funeral, she began to feel uneasy.
Her unease increased when Eric told his gangster friends not to retaliate. Police put extra patrols on the streets in preparation for a retaliatory shooting in the subsequent weeks, and they were puzzled and surprised when none occurred. There is always a retaliation when a gang member’s girlfriend or wife is murdered. Why didn’t Eric want this murder retaliated against?
Shortly after Melissa’s funeral, Eric contacted Joan for Melissa’s jewelry. Joan also heard he would have parties in the house and show people the bloody cushions where Melissa had died, like it was some circus freak show, not the death of his loved one. He seemed to be having a good old time.
Just months after Melissa died, Eric told Joan that he was moving in with a friend who was also a single parent. Joan heard the friend’s name as “Jim,” so she was angered to learn that the friend was actually “Gem,” a woman whose baby daddy was in prison. Gem and her little boy moved in with Eric and Mariah.
Soon, Joan became concerned for her granddaughter’s welfare and called CYFD, who consequently removed Mariah and Gem’s son from the home. CPS workers said the home was a hotbed of guns and meth and the children were not being cared for properly. Both children tested positive for high amounts of meth, suggesting they had ingested residue directly from surfaces in the home. Joan got custody of Mariah and Eric’s parental rights were suspended. Everyone in the court system advised the judge not to grant Eric or his family custody of the child due to their drug and gang ties.
Joan had various weird interactions with Eric’s family following her daughter’s death, as well. Eric’s mother told Joan, “Melissa looked very peaceful” when Joan bemoaned not seeing her daughter until after the autopsy. But Eric’s mother said before that she had left her phone ringer off and her son couldn’t get a hold of her the night of April 15. She supposedly didn’t get to the house until after Melissa had been removed, so she should not have seen Melissa’s face until the funeral. How did she know how Melissa looked? Maybe Eric and his cousin Fred told her, but it seems suspicious.
Even more suspiciously, Eric’s father told Joan, “Just think – Eric has to live with what he did!” Did Eric’s father know something? Why would he say that?
Chastynee was a friend of Melissa’s. She told Joan that Eric had murdered Melissa in 2007 and she couldn’t believe he hadn’t been charged. Yet in 2009, she married the man. They have several children together. Now she lives in San Antonio and does not appear to be with Eric anymore.
Eric was arrested multiple times after Melissa’s murder for felony possession of firearms, probation violations, and, in 2018, trafficking meth. He was sentenced to 60 months in prison with four years of probation in 2018. That means he is currently out on the streets. Despite all the death and horror in his life, he has not appeared to clean up.
Eric’s family became increasingly irritated and furious with Joan for keeping her daughter’s case alive. They began to threaten her. To protect herself and her granddaughter, Joan says she had to leave Roswell.
The Triple Murder
On August 22, 2015, Damon B. Oswald-Newman, 19, Shelly L. Bird, 25, and Mere Contreras, 31, were shot in the same home where Melissa had died. Kandice M. Holloway, 24, was also shot in the basement but survived after multiple grueling surgeries. Reina Contreras was asleep in the house and tried to save her brother Mere but was too late. She expresses guilt about not being awake online. Family members of Damon Oswald-Newman said that he was shot in cold blood while he slept; it is not clear if the others were also asleep or not.
The morning of the 22, police received a call about a gunshot victim at 302 E Reed St. As they drove up to the house, they noticed a Hispanic male with long hair pedaling away on a mountain or ten-speed bike, with his shirt over his shoulder. Cops entered the home and found three victims, so they took off after the man on the bike, assuming he was a suspect. But he had vanished, seemingly into thin air. Police returned to the home and followed bloody footprints down to the basement, where they found Holloway shot. Reina Contreras, sister to Mere and Eric, was trying to save her.
Mere was Eric’s older brother. He left behind a wife and two kids. Shelly Bird left behind a husband and two children. Not much is available about Damon Oswald-Newman online but he was so young that I’m sure he left behind parents and other family members who dearly miss him.
It is unclear how Bird, Oswald-Newman, and Holloway were associated with the Contreras family or why they were in that residence that night. It is also unclear if drugs or gang affiliations were involved in the murder, but I would not be surprised. Mere’s obituary lists several “special brothers,” all with gang names. He appeared to be in the same lifestyle as his brother.
The case is now considered “cold.” There have been few leads, despite a cash reward on offer for information. Nobody is talking. Not even the survivor, Holloway, has been able to offer information that cracked the case. I wonder what she saw and what she remembers?
But I bet everyone knows who did it. Roswell is a small town with a circle of usual suspects. The police may not charge someone, but that hardly means they don’t know who did it. This triple homicide may have been an execution by a rival gang or it may have been a cartel-related massacre.
It is uncertain if the man on the bike had anything to do with the crime or if he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is weird that he was riding his bike at 3 in the morning near the scene of a brutal triple murder.The way he disappeared suggests he lived nearby or had someone pick him up in a vehicle large enough to stow a bike. He might be local and well-known to the area.
This triple homicide makes me wonder what really happened to Melissa. Was she shot in a family feud like police think? Was she murdered by Eric like Joan Hughes thinks? Or was she the victim of gang violence like Eric maintains? One troubling thing about the gang theory is the lack of retaliation, but maybe Eric knew better than to retaliate? Maybe he was genuinely scared of whoever put nine bullet holes in his house.
I think given the violence surrounding this house and this family, it is not that outlandish to assume Melissa really was killed in a drive-by. But Eric Contreras’s behavior is certainly suspicious and I think he may have played a much bigger role in the murder than he claims. His family may know more than they are willing to admit.
Nevertheless, it is tragic what has happened to these two families – Melissa’s family and the Contreras family. So many children were left without parents.
Joan Hughes continues to have custody of Mariah, who has had to grow up without a mother and a proper father. That little girl has been through more than anyone deserves, as has Melissa’s mother. When Mariah was little, Joan took her to sit on Santa’s lap, and Mariah told Santa she wanted her mama back for Christmas. Santa became teary and told her that he could not bring her mom back.
The entire Contreras family has gone through so much loss. Three of the four Contreras brothers have now died prematurely. Chastadie is the sister of Mere and Eric, and she has racked up her own list of arrests, even exposing herself at a Roswell intersection. Videos of her indecent exposure circulated online to much derision. In the comments, family members defended her, saying she has been through a lot. If you read the news in Roswell, the name “Contreras” comes up often for criminal activity. Not only does Eric have a long rapsheet, but other family members have also been arrested for gang activity and homicides. This hardly means that this family is not worthy of justice. They are human, just like the rest of us, and it can be very hard or even impossible to escape the gang life once you’re in it. I can only hope they are able to heal and make better choices.
I don’t know what happened to these 4 homicide victims or who killed them. But I do know that the crime problem and gangs in Roswell are out of hand. If you look at this gun violence page for Roswell, the number of entries are astounding for a town with a population of less than 50k. So many lives have been destroyed by this senseless violence.
The violence is often over drugs and money, things that are not worth killing or dying over. Parents and siblings have to grieve their loved ones; children have to grow up without their parents. Poverty in Roswell and a deep-seated crime culture have contributed to generation after generation getting embroiled in the gangs and drug dealing, and rising prices due to the oil boom have not helped.
I can’t pretend to have a solution, but I do think this is a crisis that New Mexico has not bothered to contend with. Something has to be done. Stimulating the economy and better funding the schools in Chavez County may be a good start. Oh, and someone should bless that house at 302 E Reed St and help those poor souls find peace.
https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-nm/legacy/2014/02/03/2011-05-06_contreras_pr.pdf
https://www.newmexicanstopreventgunviolence.org/chaves-county-gun-violence/
https://www.realcrimes.com/Romero,%20M/melissaromero.htm
https://www.koat.com/article/police-investigating-triple-homicide/5066120
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/currentargus/name/shelly-bird-obituary?id=17837201
https://www.andersonbethany.com/obituaries/Mere-Contreras/#!/TributeWall