Sheriff: Woman knew teen who killed her

TULAROSA, N.M. (KRQE) - Family members and a community in southeast New Mexico are grieving the loss of a Tularosa woman allegedly stabbed to death by a young acquaintance who stole her car.

Otero County sheriff's deputies say Rita Gallegos was murdered in cold blood on New Year's Day.

Gallegos and her husband Albert knew the suspect, Paul Reynolds, whom they had helped on several occasions. They even offered him dinner that day. 

On Thursday cars lined the driveway at the Gallegos home as friends and family came by to pay their respects.

"We got up, and I told her, 'Happy New Year's!'" Albert Gallegos recalled.  "And she gave me a kiss. 'Happy New Year's, vieja.'"

Gallegos said that day they heard a knock on the door. It was Reynolds, 18, whom he knew well through his work with a medical transportation company. Reynolds was a client.

"I would take him to Albuquerque," Gallegos told KRQE News 13.  "I treated him good.  I would buy him hamburgers, I would buy him Coke, whatever he wanted, because I figured he was in need of maybe somebody to be with him or something."

Gallegos said Reynolds asked about buying some items inside his garage.

"I have an antique car, a 1970 Plymouth, and he said, 'I want that car,' and I said, 'I don't think so,'" said Gallegos.

Gallegos said the couple invited Reynolds to stay for dinner, but he declined. Gallegos said he saw Reynolds walk away with two young women.

Shortly after, Gallegos left to take his neighbor some dinner. When he returned home roughly 45 minutes later, he said he found his wife's SUV missing.

"I walked in the kitchen, and I seen a large amount of blood all over the floor," he recalled. He assumed Rita hurt herself and maybe drove to the hospital.
   
After reporting her missing, and driving to the hospital himself, sheriff's deputies found her in a place Albert didn't think to look. 

"She had been severely battered, multiple knife wounds, and she died there in the master bedroom," Otero County Sheriff Benny House said.

It didn't take long before Rita's SUV was found. Investigators said the suspect made it roughly 14 miles from the Tularosa home before crashing the stolen vehicle.

When Alamogordo Department of Public Safety officers responded to the crash, investigators with Otero County Sheriff's Department quickly discovered it was the same vehicle taken from the Gallegos' home earlier.

Two women, Alena Priego, 18, and Lea Valencia, 23, were running from the crash and taken into custody. Deputies learned Reynolds had been driving the stolen vehicle, and deputies arrested him the next day for killing Rita Gallegos.
    
Reynolds told investigators he wanted the car to settle a $30,000 debt although that explanation doesn't make any sense to Gallegos.

"My wife, she was real friendly, everybody liked her," said Albert. "Why they did it to her, the Lord just is the only one that knows."

Reynolds is being held in the Otero County Detention Center on a $1 million cash-only bond. House said the investigation is ongoing and that more charges are possible.

The women are charge with receiving or transferring a stolen vehicle.