911 callers try to save slain sergeant

LA CUEVA, N.M. (KRQE) - The New Mexico Department of Public Safety released the 911 call made by neighbors who heard a deputy cry for help as her partner lay dying in a cabin near La Cueva last week.

"Somebody has been shot," the caller who said her name was Jan Stone to a dispatcher.

Deputy Teresa Moriarty couldn't use her cell phone or her police radio to call for help because of spotty coverage up in the Jemez Mountains when her partner, Sgt. Joe Harris was shot by a man they'd been staking out known as the 'Cookie Bandit.'

The suspect, identified as Joseph Burgess, had been breaking into homes in La Cueva and stealing food. He was also a suspect in the murders of two campers in 1972 in Canada.

When Moriarty couldn't get through to 911, she yelled for help instead.

Stone told the dispatcher that the cabin Harris and Moriarty were in did not have a phone.

Stone and a male caller, who is heard on the same call, told the dispatcher they heard two shots then Moriarty's cries.

"She's out there yelling, 'Please call an ambulance, he's been shot, please call an ambulance, he's been shot," Stone said.

Harris had been shot in an artery in his leg. Investigators said the bullet came from Burgess' gun.

Dispatcher: Do you know who shot who
Caller: No, somebody trying to find the Cookie Bandit and everything up here in Horseshoe Loop
Dispatcher: We're sending quite a bit of officers out there. An officer got shot?
Caller: I think it's Joe Harris
Dispatcher: Do you know how many officers are out there

The caller then told the dispatcher that they know Sgt. Harris and Deputy Moriarty are at the cabin.

Dispatcher: Do you know who shot him [Harris]?
Caller: No we don't know...inaudible...get somebody here fast and an ambulance

But Sgt. Harris wouldn't make it. He died on the way to the hospital.

Before Harris died he was able to shoot and kill Burgess; Moriarty wasn't hurt.