The assassination of Deputy Juan Ortiz is proof that New Mexico still held onto its Wild West roots, long after the dust had settled from the Rough and Ready Riders and long after Billy the Kid took his last shuddering breath. It can still be wild sometimes today. This tragic revenge tale left many people broken-hearted, and it’s still officially unsolved today, despite it being obvious who did it.
Deputy Sheriff Juan Leo Ortiz was a hardworking lawman who didn’t flinch away from arresting criminals. Unfortunately, law enforcement is not the safest line of work, and Deputy Ortiz joined the ranks of many fallen officers.
Deputy Ortiz worked for the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Department. He had a remote patrol in the Santa Fe National Forest in 1978. He had been assigned to this post by the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Department and the Forest Service after San Miguel County received a barrage of complaints about four to seven disheveled young men on horseback, robbing and harassing campers. Deputy Ortiz patrolled a huge range, from 25 miles north of Las Vegas to the north, to west of Mora, to 50 miles south of El Pueblo.
On August 12, 1978, he came upon three men on horseback who matched the description of the marauders, somewhere around the Walker Flats area. He came upon each of them separately and briefly questioned them. The first two answered his questions peacefully and he let them go on their way. Then he came upon Frank J. Trujillo. Trujillo was highly intoxicated and on horseback when he was approached by Deputy Ortiz. Deputy Ortiz asked for some ID, and Trujillo became belligerent. Deputy Ortiz retreated to his truck for safety. Trujillo dismounted his horse, approached the truck, and berated the deputy. Then he stalked back to his horse and grabbed a rifle from his saddle. When he aimed the rifle at Deputy Ortiz, Ortiz fired in self-defense. Trujillo died as a result.
Deputy Ortiz was charged with murder due to the political rancor surrounding an officer shooting of Las Vegas teen named Frank Garcia. But Ortiz’s defense, Jose Sandoval, worked hard to get the charges dropped. At his hearing in late August, Ortiz faced a courtroom full of angry people, including members of Trujillo’s family. Ortiz was both guilty and afraid for his life.
Leaving his lawyer’s Las Vegas office one day in August 1978, a car attempted to run him and Jose Sandoval down. At another time, a car chased Deputy Ortiz for 12 miles on the highway between Las Vegas and Sapello. The car attempted to run him off the road. Terrified, Deputy Ortiz sought shelter at a friend’s house. Clearly someone wanted him dead and they eventually got their way.
On the second day of hearings, Deputy Ortiz’s murder charge was dismissed by Judge Joe Angel. The judge believed Ortiz’s story of self-defense. Deputy Ortiz was a large, imposing man, standing at 6’2” and weighing about 200 pounds. But no one who knew him could describe him as a bully. His wife and colleagues actually described him as gentle. However, this ruling earned the ire of many people, who felt Deputy Ortiz deserved to go to jail.
The threats on his life deeply disturbed Deputy Ortiz. Both Ortiz’s supervisor, Sheriff Santillanes, and Judge Joe Angel advised Deputy Ortiz to return to his native Pojoaque until things settled. Deputy Ortiz did take a leave of absence from duty, but he was determined to get the hay baled on his ranch in Rociada, near Mora.
On September 17, 1978, he was at home on the ranch. He was directing his wife to back up a truck toward his barn to unload some bales of hay. Someone shot him with a .300-caliber rifle from about 200 yards away. The first bullet hit him in the arm and he exclaimed “Ouch!”. The second one hit him in his back and proved fatal. His wife Emily, ten-year-old son Philip, and seven-year-old son Anthony witnessed his death.
Deputy Ortiz succumbed to his wounds within minutes. His aunt knelt over his body, saying prayers. His family called the police but by the time they arrived, Deputy Ortiz was already gone.
Sheriff Santillanes, New Mexico State Police, and homicide investigator James Montoya were the first on scene. They found two bullet holes in the barn walls. They used string to determine the line of sight of the shooter and discovered the killer had been on a wooded hill overlooking the hay barn. On that hill, they found branches and brush had been cleared to make a clear line of sight. There were two spent rifle casings and some hoofprints on the ground, but no other evidence. The sniper had clearly waited there and then fled as stealthily as he had come, probably on horseback.
Ortiz’s cousin, Ted Maestas, recalled that he had been in the line of sight of the sniper and the sniper must have waited for him to move so that he could take out his intended target. Who knows how long the sniper had waited – but he accomplished the evil act he had set out to do.
Sheriffs actually managed to follow the hoofprints into the woods for some ways. When they lost the trail, they brought in bloodhounds and a helicopter. They soon found that the hoofprints joined two other sets of hoofprints near the ranch. Two of the sets eventually split off and went to Mora; another set continued on the Angostura Trail to Tres Ritos. They stopped at an old cabin in the woods. Someone had apparently broken into the cabin and spent the night. There was also evidence that someone had towed a horse trailer into the clearing by the cabin and loaded a horse into it. Tres Ritos residents saw a yellow truck pulling a white horse trailer in the area.
After that, the State Police took over and interviewed people all over the area. Then the FBI came in. But nobody was able to solve the case.
I think it is fairly obvious who did it: the other three men that had been marauding the Santa Fe National Forest on horseback with Trujillo. I’m not sure which one actually pulled the trigger, but they were all involved. The families are probably behind it, too.
So why was no one charged? How did police not find evidence to convict them?
Emily Ortiz and her four children were shattered by the crime. They soon sold the Rociada ranch, saying it was too full of bad memories of the crime. Emily Ortiz moved to Las Vegas with her children and supported herself on death benefits from the Fraternal Order of Police. I can’t imagine the trauma she and her poor children went through, as well as the rest of Deputy Ortiz’s family.
In 1979, Frank Trujillo’s widow, Delores Trujillo, sued Sheriff Presiliano Santillanes, the federal government, and San Miguel County for $1.25 million for the wrongful death of Frank Trujillo. She claimed that her husband was innocently riding his horse in the National Forest when Deputy Ortiz shot him for no reason at all. That seems like an unlikely story, but I also think that she probably believed it. Loved ones tend to be in denial after bad things like this happen.
Deputy Ortiz was just doing his job and he was killed for it. You never know when something might happen that blows your whole life up. My heart goes out to Deputy Ortiz’s family.