I think the worst thing in the world is when someone you love leaves to take care of a simple errand and they are supposed to come back…but they never do. This is, unfortunately, what happened to the family of Roberto Armando Benavidez Garcia.
Who beat this 22-year-old WNMU art student to death in Hurley, NM, just outside of Silver City? Was he struck by a car in a hit and run? What the hell happened to him? No one knows to this day.
Nobody deserves a violent end. When police say that people led high risk lifestyles or were in gangs or were using drugs, it seems to cloud the public’s perspective of the victim. It goes from, “How horrible, we need to serve justice!” to “Oh, that’s sad, but kind of expected.” LE seems to dedicate less effort to crimes committed against victims in lifestyles deemed unacceptable by society.
That being said, some victims have a victimology that seems to make them more unlikely victims of violence than others. This does not make them any more innocent than anyone else, but it does make their deaths more troubling simply due to the resounding question, “Why???” It’s hard to establish a motive with these types of victims. And violent crimes without a known motive remind us that we are all potential victims and it could happen to any one of us when we least expect it – shattering our illusion of safety.
Roberto is one such victim. He was not in a gang; he was not an active, known drug user; his toxicology report found no drugs, illicit or prescription, in his blood; he was simply a young man out looking for his missing dog, clutching a black and pink leash, wandering the streets of Hurley calling “Buster!”
Roberto was described as very artistic, smart, and sensitive. He had a twin sister, Camila, and he and Camila were polar opposites yet extremely close. They even held each other in the same crib when they were babies. He also had an older brother, Kahlo, who was born in June just as Camila and Roberto were. This older brother passed away three years before Roberto and it is unclear how he died, though he was an avid AIDS advocate.
Roberto had attended the Academy of Art in San Francisco until Kahlo died, after which he came back to Silver City and enrolled in WNMU for art. While he lived in the dorms, he often visited his family in Hurley, a little town just outside of Silver City. April 20, 2012, was another one of his routine visits, but this time, he never came back home from looking for his missing dog.
His mom discovered him facedown in the street, surrounded by ambulance and already dead, at 10 pm on the 300 block of Aztec. Eerily, he had just told her about a half hour before, “It’s all right, Mom, I’ll be right back” as he headed out the door to chase after his errant Blue Heeler. Apparently, she had been worried about him heading out into the night, and rightly so.
It is hard to find information about Roberto or his murder. There are a few articles in the Grant County Beat and the Silver City Daily Press. In his obituary, it is written that he was a Native American and had lived in New Mexico all of his life until he went to San Francisco for art school. That helps form an idea of his victimology. The fact that Roberto was a Native American could possibly indicate that he was the victim of a racial hate crime. The fact he was an artist may have created the impression he was gay, as well, whether he actually was or not. This would be further fuel for a hate crime.
My question is, why was his mom so worried about him going out into the night to search for the dog? Hurley is not known for its violence; in fact, its crime rate is nearly 4 times below the national average. Roberto left at 9:30 pm. For a 22-year-old, going outside to look for a dog at 9:30 pm would usually not be that alarming to a mother. So was his mother just a particularly anxious person? Was she traumatized by the recent loss of her other son, Kahlo, who had also been 22 when he died of undisclosed causes in 2009? Or did she know something might happen?
It also seems odd that the dog went missing the very night he was murdered. Did the dog often get out due to an insecure fence? Or was this a rare occurrence? According to the Silver City Daily Press, the dog took off down the street to some new pitbull puppies, which it had also done about two weeks before. There was no mention of any other incidents with the dog getting out. It does seem like it could be unrelated to the crime, but maybe someone let the dog out, intending to lure Roberto onto the streets. This person must have known that the dog was Roberto’s if they did this, meaning that they were close to Roberto. The extremely brutal nature of the bludgeoning (the autopsy says cause of death was multiple blunt force traumas to Roberto’s head and neck) suggests this crime may have been personal.
Who reported him dead in the first place? When Roberto’s mother went looking for him, she saw emergency vehicles gathered around his body. Someone else had called in his death before she discovered him.
Another thing I find odd is that neighbors report hearing gunshots and seeing a vehicle in the vicinity of where he died. There were 60 feet of skid marks in the area. But Roberto was not shot and did not have signs of being struck by a car. Instead, he supposedly died suddenly from a severe blunt force trauma to his neck where it met his head.
So where were these gunshots aimed? And why did the killer beat him to death, when they had a gun in hand, and a gun would have been more rapid and efficient? Did many neighbors hear these gunshots, or just one person?
Perhaps Roberto stumbled upon a crime taking place, and he was killed as a result. Why he wasn’t shot only adds to the mystery of his case. I almost wonder if he was hit by a car – that type of accident manifests as blunt force trauma – but the usual evidence of a car-related death were missing, such as paint chips or tire tread marks. Maybe the OMI made a mistake. It seems most plausible that someone was involved in a possible drive-by shooting. They either accidentally hit Roberto as they fled the scene, or they deliberately ran him over because they were worried he would be a witness. The idea that someone beat him to death for no reason and then fled seems much more implausible.
Roberto’s mother has never given up. Even though police seem to be stalling the best they can on this case. From the beginning, she has been unable to get a hold of key people. First, she had to miss a meeting with DA District Attorney Mary Lynne Newell on April 24, 2012, because of her son’s viewing and then Native ceremony and cremation. Unable to get another meeting, she began to call everyone she could to advocate for her son and try to advance his case. She was unhappy with how law enforcement handled it and never got responses or help. An Albuquerque FBI agent initially agreed to take on the case but only after receiving an invitation from Hurly Chief of Police, Bobby Ruiz, who had jurisdiction at the time. Ruiz never followed through on involving the FBI, though.
The OMI dragged its feet on getting her the autopsy report, claiming that the sheriff in Grant County did not return their calls or submit its police report on time. It took over two months for them to get the report to Kathleen. Even then, the manner of death is listed as “undetermined” instead of “homicide.” The cause of death is blunt force trauma to the head and neck.
When the Grant County Sheriff took over, they staunchly refused to release records on the case, claiming it was due to the open nature of the investigation. But guess what? The Silver City Daily Press cites: “The law does not allow for blanket exceptions allowing law enforcement to withhold complete reports on open investigations. According to the statute, 14-2-1, the exception applies to “(4) law enforcement records that reveal confidential sources, methods, information or individuals accused but not charged with a crime” (emphasis added).” This quote indicates how dedicated the paper was to helping Kathleen get closure in this case, which has now been cold for ten years. So why won’t the sheriff’s office release the records then? What is the sheriff’s office hiding? If the exception covers confidential sources or individuals accused but not charged, then it reasonably follows that they must have a confidential source or individuals that they are interested in. This means that the sheriff lied when he told the Silver City Daily Press that nothing in the case had changed and there was nothing new to report.
In 2019, Grant County sheriff Frank Gomez stated that there was nobody assigned to the case due to the department being understaffed, then he stated that the person responsible for the crime may already be in jail for an unrelated crime, so people should feel safe coming forward. This makes me think that maybe the sheriffs have a person or persons of interest. Who??? Why have they not pursued this further? Could it be because the victim is Native, and therefore not of much importance to them? Or could it be that the perp has kin in the sheriff’s department or legal system, and is being protected? Or are they really that understaffed? If they are that understaffed, calling in the FBI for some help would be a reasonable solution. They need to be getting justice for a young man who did not deserve the terrible end he met and getting closure for his twin sister, left without her other half, and grieving mother and father, who already lost another son just three years and five days before.
Sources
https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/50585-roberto-benavides-case-remains-unsolved
https://www.scdailypress.com/2018/04/21/six-years-no-answers-in-benavidez-murder/
https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/28596-hurley-s-2012-murder-still-unsolved
https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/obituaries/5672-roberto-armando-benavidez-garcia?tmpl=component
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/lascrucesbulletin/obituary.aspx?pid=157244269
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/lcsun-news/name/kahlo-benavidez-obituary?id=26110548