Sad day for old friends as murder sinks in

SANTA FE (KRQE) - The Villa Hermosa senior living center was a different place Wednesday as residents reacted to the horrific details of a murder that claimed one of their neighbors.

They now know the victim, believed to be George Ortiz, 75, was strangled, doused with cooking oil and set on fire.

While police believe the victim is Ortiz, they are waiting on official confirmation from the Office of the Medical Investigator.

And one of the suspects under arrest in Santa Fe may be someone Ortiz helped raise.

Ortiz volunteered in the kitchen at the public-housing senior center every morning.

"I kept on thinking I'm missing someone, and then I realized that it was him and he's not going to be here," said Johnathan Toya who works at the center on Luisa Street.

Late on Tuesday the step-granddaughter Ortiz may have helped raise was arrested and charged with the crime.

"Everyone is still in shock," Toya said. "I know a lot of people lost sleep because he's such a great guy."

Jeannie Ann Sandoval,34, and her boyfriend, Anthony Yepez, 26,are both charged with murder.

The couple was staying with Ortiz, and police say Sandoval told detectives they got into an argument Monday night.

Yepez admitted to sitting on Ortiz as he strangled the man, according to police. Then, detectives say, the couple tried to destroy the evidence.

"The two had a discussion to cover up the body," Capt. Aric Wheeler of the Santa Fe police department said. "A decision was made to place cooking oil on top of the body and the body was set on fire."

For Eddie Lovato, he just wishes he could stop by for another cup of coffee with Ortiz.

"I just went to his house today and looked through the window," Lovato told KRQE news 13. "Everything is black; everything is burned out."

Instead he's left wondering what could have led up to this.

"They would get in arguments, but he would tell me he wanted them out of the house already," Lovato said. "He was tired of them not working."

Police have not said what the couple and Ortiz were arguing about. But they do say that after the couple left the apartment, they called other family members, who then called police on them.

Police caught up with Sandoval and Yepez in Ortiz's car Tuesday afternoon outside a Walgreens in Española. Police will soon do a search of that car to see if anything else was taken from Ortiz's home.