QUESTA, N.M. (KRQE) – A Questa man charged under Bennie’s Law is asking a judge to suppress key evidence in a deadly shooting. William Brown is accused of allowing his teen son to access one of his guns, thought to be used to kill a 13-year-old girl. William Brown now claims Questa police didn’t do their job when they first arrived at his home.
Porfirio Brown is facing first-degree murder, evidence tampering and other charges for a deadly shooting in July that killed 13-year-old Amber Archuleta. Witnesses including the victim’s brother say Prfirio Brown was playing with a gun when it went off.
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In a new motion from Porfirio Brown’s father, William Brown, attorneys now claim those statements shouldn’t be allowed in his trial. William Brown is charged with negligently making a firearm accessible to a minor after New Mexico State Police found guns improperly stored in the home.
Video also shows Brown gave officers trouble when they first tried to enter his home. Brown’s lawyers claim Questa police didn’t properly secure the scene and let the two witnesses leave unsupervised without an officer searching them for evidence.
Brown’s attorneys claim Questa police body camera video shows at least one witness entering the home without police permission. They also note witness’s stories changed amid the police investigation, with the teens first claiming Archuletta was killed in a drive-by shooting.
The motion argues a responding Questa officer’s ex-wife is related to the deceased and that relationship created a high probability of bias in the case.
Attorneys claim officers then focused their investigation on Porfirio and William Brown without considering the two witnesses as suspects.
The motion also raises questions over the gun investigators say was used in the shooting. New Mexico State Police found packaging for a revolver in Brown’s home, but attorneys claim no revolver was found. They also claim the revolver from that packaging was in Carlsbad at the time of the shooting, and then later turned over to NMSP.
