A preliminary hearing has been set for the two men accused in the Oct. 19 shooting death of a Farmington man.
Farmington Police arrested Bryce Trujillo, 18, and Emilio Hilliard, 19, both from Aztec, in connection with the drive-by shooting in the area of Gooding Lane and East Main Street that resulted in the death of Ethan Thompson, 23, of Farmington, according to an affidavit for arrest warrant.
Trujillo and Hilliard are scheduled to appear Nov. 1 in Magistrate Mark Hawkinson’s courtroom.
Both men went before Magistrate Stanley King on Oct. 24. King decided to release Hilliard from the San Juan County Detention Center and place him on an ankle monitor, while Trujillo will be held in the detention center on other charges.
According to the affidavit for arrest warrant, Thompson and his friend Anfernee Antone were walking northbound Gooding Lane on the sidewalk, heading toward the Speedway gas station on Main Street, when Antone said “he observed a car turn south on Gooding Lane. The car backed up and Antone heard shots.”
Antone told police, “he looked back and saw Thompson fall to the ground,” according to the affidavit.
Thompson reportedly “was shot in the face, and had an injury to the eye area,” the affidavit states.
Antone and two other individuals attempted to provide lifesaving measures to Thompson until another officer “arrived on scene and started CPR.” Thompson was taken to San Juan Regional, where he died, according to the affidavit and earlier reports from police.
Police asked Antone what type of vehicle was involved in the shooting, but he was unable to provide a description, instead a nearby residents told police “they observed a white Ford Focus with tinted windows drive past their residence,” and the saw it “travel at a high rate of speed through the neighborhoods,” according to the affidavit.
Another area resident told police they saw the “white sedan stopped, for approximately two seconds, next to the male lying on the ground and continued driving north,” according to the affidavit.
Officer Waylon Wasson was manning the Farmington Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center at the time of the shooting and reportedly observed the Ford Focus exit Gooding Lane and travel eastbound on West Main Street. He tracked the vehicle “using cameras and license plate readers in the area,” locating it at the intersection of West Main Street and Murray Drive. “The vehicle turned south on Murray Drive and then went west on the Bisti Highway,” according to the affidavit.
It was New Mexico State Police that stopped the vehicle and arrested Trujillo and Hilliard and transported them to the Farmington Police Department for questioning, the affidavit states.
According to the affidavit, when detectives questioned Hilliard, he reportedly told police “he and his friend Bryce were going to a friend’s house when there was a possible robbery.” However, when he was advised of his Miranda rights, he stated that “he wanted a lawyer.”
When detectives questioned Trujillo, he reportedly was “aggressive and argumentative” and used “racial and derogatory terms referring to black, white and Native people.” He also reportedly gave detectives a fake name, the affidavit states.
Trujillo also told police, “he was coming from Napi with his friend Emilio and that they were on their way home when they got stopped.” He “denied they had been in Farmington driving around,” according to the affidavit.
Police stated in the affidavit that Trujillo “became upset,” when questioned about a drive-by shooting, and “talked about shots being fired as if the police were going to shoot him or as if he had gone to a school and been shooting.”
Police also questioned Trujillo’s mother, Kathleen Trujillo, who stated he had been working the night of Oct. 19 at Locke Street Eats and she said she knew he “was driving around with Hilliard after work,” because he sent her text messages. She also stated that she was “worried because Trujillo isn’t normally out late because he had school” the next day, the affidavit stated.
She also told police “she did not know or believe he (Trujillo) had access to guns,” the affidavit states.
However, police reportedly found a “small caliber carbine rifle lying in the back seat floor board area” of the Ford Focus, and according to Detective Sgt. Clay Raybon, he believed “it was put there by a person sitting in the from passenger seat,” according to the affidavit. There also was “a box of Fiochi 9 mm ammunition” in the vehicle’s back seat.
Hilliard was booked into the San Juan County Detention Center on a second-degree murder charge and second-degree shooting from a motor vehicle charge.
Trujillo was booked into the San Juan County Detention Center on a second-degree murder charge and a second-degree shooting from a motor vehicle charge.
