Trashed Tajique store back in business

TAJIQUE, N.M. (KRQE) - Two young adults and a teen boy have been charged with the burglary that did so much damage to the only store in Tajique it nearly put the place out of business.

At the center of the village in the southern Manzano Mountain village good cheer normally fills Ray's One Stop.

"All of us stop at this little store from Mountainair, Estancia, everywhere," customer Dixie Boyle. "Sometimes for gas, sometimes just to come in and visit."

The badly damaged cash register is once again rings up sales

Manager Veronica Marquez thought she might have to close shop on Sunday after thieves broke in, pried $200 out of the register and stole $10,000 worth of booze, energy drinks and cigarettes.

"I still haven't had the chance to replace all the cigarettes, all the wine, because I don't have the money," Marquez told KRQE News 13.

After breaking into the store, the robbers noticed surveillance cameras, so they turned them to face the walls. It seemed like the work of professionals.

But deputies say one of the crooks was only 14 years old. He's in custody along with Logan Chavez, 18, and Kaleb Moorhead, 21.

Deputies said they cracked the case in two days.

"Some very good investigation skills led them to these people and recovery of these items," Torrance County Undersheriff Heath White said.

Marquez can't wait to get the stolen goods back, but she said she's disturbed she let the parents of the accused thieves buy groceries and snacks on credit.

"You understand that sometimes that they don't have enough money and you try to help them," she said. "And its sad when you find out when you find out their kids are the ones doing all this stuff.

"It could make people a little more where they don't trust each other in small communities like this."

Deputies said they found the stolen merchandise when they went to the home of one of the suspects to question him about a car break-in.