Update 5:10 a.m.: César Meléndez, the 5-year-old boy abducted by his father Tuesday after a shooting in southwest Santa Fe is safe and in the custody of the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office.

His father, 39-year-old, José Meléndez-Trillo, was located shortly after midnight Wednesday morning and, after a short police pursuit in southwest Santa Fe, barricaded himself and the boy in a 1997 Ford Expedition off County Road 56 west of the Santa Fe Municipal Airport.

After about a four-hour standoff with police, Meléndez-Trillo released the boy and immediately turned a gun on himself around 4 a.m., according to Sheriff's Office Lt. Adan Mendoza. Police fired no shots.

Update 12:54 a.m.: Lt. Adan Mendoza of the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office has confirmed that the suspect in Tuesday's fatal shooting, José Meléndez-Trillo, has been found off County Road 56 west of the Santa Fe Municipal Airport, and officers are negotiating the release of his 5-year-old-son. Mendoza said the man and his son are in a vehicle, but could not elaborate.

The road toward La Cienega was blocked off at Huey Road, one mile west of N.M. 599.

By 1 a.m. members of the Santa Fe Police Department's SWAT team were assembling near the scene. One officer said Meléndez-Trillo was still armed and officers were in the process of moving the road block east to N.M. 599.
— Geoff Grammer

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Patricia Cisneros celebrated her 34th birthday on Monday night.

The working mother of three spent the evening out with family and then enjoyed a snack of red-chile enchiladas — her favorite dinner prepared by her mother — early Tuesday morning in her home off Airport Road.

It was her last meal.

Police say her ex-boyfriend, José Meléndez-Trillo, 39, an immigrant from Mexico who used the name Jose Soto when working around Santa Fe and on his state-issued driver's license, shot and killed Cisneros around 3 a.m. Tuesday.

Her family says the shooting caught them off guard, as Meléndez-Trillo was having a conversation with Cisneros — who had been at her home, watching their three children for the evening — when he walked out to his truck, retrieved a rifle and returned to shoot the woman before abducting their 5-year-old son, César.

"In a second he came back in [the home] with a rifle and shot her," said Josefina Durán, Patricia's mother. "Oh God, it was awful. I froze and saw my daughter fall to the ground, covered in blood."

An arrest warrant charging one open count of murder has been issued for Meléndez-Trillo.

Santa Fe County Sheriff's Lt. Adan Mendoza admits investigators are still trying to pinpoint a motive for the shooting, as Meléndez-Trillo has no known criminal history and the family members report they are unaware of any physical harm he has committed in the past.

Cisneros and Meléndez-Trillo are both from the same city in Chihuahua, Mexico, but they started dating in Santa Fe and were in a relationship here for most of the last 16 years before things became rough about a year ago, according to family members. They said Meléndez-Trillo, who worked construction around Santa Fe, moved out of the couple's home about four months ago and had grown obsessive and jealous in recent months.

Cisneros' family says the breakup happened after Cisneros discovered Meléndez-Trillo was cheating on her.

"He refused to let her go. He didn't seem aggressive, but I think he became jealous," said Nancy Cisneros, the victim's older sister.

He even once threatened Patricia Cisneros, according to the sister, but it was never reported to police, and even family members never thought Meléndez-Trillo would act on his threats. In fact, he was still a regular visitor — mainly because Patricia Cisneros didn't want to end their 16-year relationship with hostility — so she let him keep the keys to the home they had once shared.

He was there baby-sitting the couple's three children Monday night and was awake when Cisneros and her mother, 68, returned from celebrating her birthday at a casino.

Family members say Cisneros spent most of her birthday Monday working as a cook at Burger King before a sister, sister-in-law and Durán convinced her to go out and celebrate at the Camel Rock and Buffalo Thunder casinos north of Santa Fe.

Cisneros, usually no fan of casinos, took $10 and made $60, her mother said with a smile.

Durán, who was sitting at the dinner table with her daughter during the shooting, said Meléndez-Trillo didn't seem angry at the time. "We had a quiet conversation. He was pleasant," she said.

At one point, she said, he walked out to his truck, returned and, without saying a word, pointed a hunting rifle at Cisneros and shot her.

The three children the couple had together — a 15-year-old son, an 11-year-old daughter and 5-year-old César — awoke to the rifle shots. Then Meléndez-Trillo took César with him and fled the scene before Santa Fe County sheriff's investigators arrived.

The first call to police dispatchers was reported at 3:08 a.m.

Meléndez-Trillo, who deputies say should be considered armed and dangerous, drove away with César in a 1997 Ford Expedition SUV that has a red hood, red fender and red door bearing New Mexico license plate KAX-140. César, who last week started kindergarten at Sweeney Elementary School, was last seen wearing camouflage pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, and was sporting a blue cast on his right arm.

"He loved horses, ropes and liked wearing cowboy boots and cowboy hats, just like his dad," Nancy Cisneros said of César.

She and a couple dozen Casitas de Santa Fe mobile-home park residents congregated to console each other well into Tuesday afternoon at the nearby Blake's Lotaburger parking lot. Crime-scene investigators did not finish processing evidence in the home until about 4:30 p.m.

New Mexico State Police issued an advisory of a missing and endangered person across the state Tuesday morning with a photo and identifying information for both César and Meléndez-Trillo. A nationwide AMBER Alert was not issued. According to Sgt. Tim Johnson, the case does not meet the criteria for such an alert because the allegations include a parental abduction.

Meléndez-Trillo has an aunt in Bernalillo and other family in Colorado, Oklahoma and back home in Mexico. Police have alerted authorities in all of those areas.

The sheriff's office asks anyone with information on the whereabouts of Meléndez-Trillo or his son to call 428-3720 with nonemergency information or 911 if either is spotted.

Contact Geoff Grammer at 986-3076 or ggrammer@sfnewmexican.com. Read his blog at SantaFeCrime.com. Sandra Baltazar MartÍnez can be reached at 986-3062 or smartinez@sfnewmexican.com.

NEWS RELEASE - Homicide Soto Located



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