This is a strange double murder that happened in Los Lunas in April 2004. The victims were Eddie Verdugo and Joyleen Chavez. The two were living together but not married when they were assassinated in their Los Lunas home. The killer still hasn’t been apprehended and not many details are available about their case.
On April 16, 2004, police got an anonymous tip that two people were injured at a specific address. The caller then hung up. The sheriff deputy arrived at the address and knocked on the door to no response. He walked around and peeked in a window, where he saw Eddie Verdugo lying in the entryway to the front door, a pool of blood forming around his head.
Authorities made entry and discovered Joyleen Chavez was lying in a pool of blood in the adjacent room. Both people had been shot in the head and were still alive. They were taken to UNM Hospital but Chavez died within three hours and Verdugo died two days later.
They were thought to have been shot about half an hour before the deputy arrived on scene. Neighbors didn’t hear or see anything during that time, however. Officers said this was obviously a homicide and not a murder-suicide. That makes me think the murder weapon was probably not in the home. Nothing appeared to be taken from the home.
I really want to know who called in that tip. Police won’t say if the caller was male or female. Since neighbors claimed they hadn’t heard anything, that makes me think the killer called it in. So the killer wanted the slain couple to be found. Why? Maybe because the killer was trying to send some sort of message to someone through the deaths. Or maybe the killer had some remorse and wanted them to be saved, though that seems pretty preposterous. People can and do survive gunshots to the head, but they usually have greatly diminished quality of life. This person clearly wanted them dead or at least severely maimed for life.
Police formed a Combined Agency Homicide Team to investigate seven killings in the Los Lunas area, including the deaths of Verdugo and Chavez. They believed that the killings may have been related to a criminal network. This suggests maybe they had some evidence that Verdugo and Chavez had gang ties. Other homicide victims investigated by this task force include Philip Silva, Deanna Sais, Jason Slade, Elizabeth Gonzalez, and Cruse Rael. Police stated that people with critical knowledge about the murders were in Valencia County.
Philip Silva was from Belen. He was found on the side of the road in Albuquerque’s South Valley, a rope around his neck and a bag over his head, on December 20, 2000. Cruse Rael, his girlfriend Deanna Sais, and Sais’s son Jason Slade were all found strangled with rope in the same house in Albuquerque on November 26, 2004. Gonzalez was found shot in a field near Tome Hill in Belen on December 12, 2004.
In 2007, three Los Lunas men were convicted of the triple murder of Rael, Sais, and Slade. The defendants include Juan Calles, and two brothers named Ben Gallegos and Frank Gallegos. They are believed to be behind the murders of Verdugo and Chavez, as well as Gonzalez and Silva, but they have not been charged in those murders.
These three men were part of a gang called the East Side Locos. They sure were loco. In an effort to maintain their meth empire, they were believed to be involved in at least eight homicides, as well as armed robbery, kidnapping, racketeering, criminal solicitation, and witness intimidation. They each got 45 years after lengthy negotiations between their attorneys and the District Attorney.
I’m not sure what Verdugo and Chavez did to deserve this. Maybe they were involved in the gang or owed them drug money. Maybe they were rival gangmembers. I think meth is certainly not worth execution and I’m sad that so many lives ended this way over something so pointless and terrible. What a waste.
I can’t find much on who Eddie Verdugo and Joyleen Chavez were as people. They seem to be remembered in papers only for their violent double homicide, which is a shame. I believe Verdugo may be the same Eddie Verdugo who was convicted of stealing narcotics from the emergency room of a hospital in Las Cruces in 1973. In 1974, he was caught up in a Metro Narcotics Roundup. He may not be the same person, but the ages match. If it is him, then that indicates a lifetime of drug involvement, which culminated in his death. At the time of his death, he was only 48 years old. Joyleen Chavez was only 44.
