{"id":29927,"date":"2023-12-30T00:44:06","date_gmt":"2023-12-30T07:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/murder-suicide-investigated-in-san-juan-county\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:06:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:06:47","slug":"murder-suicide-investigated-in-san-juan-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/murder-suicide-investigated-in-san-juan-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Murder-suicide investigated in San Juan County"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Aeriel
Aeriel Marina Gallegos was found at 2:52 a.m. in an RV on the north side of a property on County Road 5457. (Brad Ryan\/Special to the Tri-City Record)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>Multiple records requests lead to release of information\n

The Tri-City Record <\/em>has learned through repeated public records requests to the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office and county legal department that a woman was killed Dec. 18 in an apparent murder-suicide.<\/p>\n

Aeriel Marina Gallegos, 19, reportedly was shot and killed by former boyfriend Manuel Weahkee, 22. She had requested a restraining order against him in August, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Reports also showed that the suspect had a history of violence, but that the charges had been dismissed.<\/p>\n

Details surrounding the murder-suicide came to light after a vague entry on a crime log and a series of denials by the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

The Sheriff\u2019s Office did not issue a news release concerning the crime, but it was listed as a \u201cshooting\u201d in the Dec. 19 sheriff\u2019s daily incident log.<\/p>\n

The Tri-City Record <\/em>made a Freedom of Information Act request Dec. 19 for the report and received a redacted copy at 9:17 a.m. Dec. 28.<\/p>\n

\"Aeriel
Aeriel Gallegos<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The redacted copy listed the crime as a second-degree murder, but had so much information redacted that it was difficult to determine what had happened. Because the report was redacted, the victim\u2019s name and age were unavailable, as were the age and name of the person allegedly responsible for her death.<\/p>\n

San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari confirmed that the case was a \u201cmurder-suicide,\u201d but he said the names and other identifying information would not be released so that he would not further \u201cvictimize\u201d the families.<\/p>\n

The Tri-City Record <\/em>contacted an official from the Foundation for Open Government, who stated the information that the Tri-City Record<\/em> requested qualified as public information under the Freedom of Information Act and could be released.<\/p>\n

\"Manuel
Manuel Weahkee<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Tri-City Record<\/em> contacted San Juan County Attorney Joseph Sawyer at 1:32 p.m. He stated he would look into the matter and speak with the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office regarding release of records and the Freedom of Information Act.<\/p>\n

After being informed that a representative from the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government said that information was considered public information, Ferrari again refused to release the name and ages of the woman and man.<\/p>\n

The Tri-City Record <\/em>received a phone call at 3:02 p.m. from Sheriff\u2019s Lt. Cory Tanner, who stated the office received a call from the county attorney\u2019s office and that an unredacted copy of the report would be released before the close of business Thursday, Dec. 28.<\/p>\n

At 4:33 p.m., the report was released, and it provided details into the two shootings \u2013 a woman had been killed by her former boyfriend, who then shot himself.<\/p>\n

Reports also showed that the suspect had a history of violence, but that all charges had been dismissed.<\/p>\n

The San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office was alerted to the incident by a phone call from Sylvia Weahkee, who \u201creported that her son told her he shot Aeriel Gallegos\u201d at a home on County Road 5457 \u201cbefore shooting himself,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n

Deputies responded to Weahkee\u2019s home on County Road 4800, as well as to the location on County Road 5457. Ferrari confirmed that deputies responded to \u201ctwo separate locations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weahkee was found at 2:41 a.m. at the home on County Road 4800. He reportedly shot himself.<\/p>\n

Weahkee reportedly had suicidal ideations dating to April 2020, when San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s deputies were called to his home at 8:52 p.m. April 19, 2020, because he had reportedly \u201ccut himself with a knife and was barricaded in his room,\u201d court records state.<\/p>\n

He was charged with battery on a peace officer in connection to that incident, but the charges were dismissed.<\/p>\n

Then, on July 31, 2021, deputies were called to the home on County Road 4800, because Weahkee reportedly got into a \u201cphysical altercation\u201d with his brother and nephew after he became angry for his brother making a comment about \u201cManuel being suicidal in the past,\u201d according to the statement of probable cause.<\/p>\n

Manuel was charged with aggravated battery, but the charges were dismissed.<\/p>\n

Gallegos was found at 2:52 a.m. in an RV on the north side of a property on County Road 5457. When deputies entered the RV bedroom, Gallegos was found \u201clying face-down in the bed with a gunshot wound to her head.\u201d She \u201cwas deceased due to the injury,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n

In a 15-page petition for order of protection from domestic abuse, Gallegos stated \u201cManuel Weahkee has physically assaulted myself Aeriel Gallegos, threatened to kill myself, my child, my family members and friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the petition, Gallegos outlined multiple physical attacks reportedly made against her by Weahkee beginning in August 2021. She stated Weahkee \u201cgrabbed me by my hair \u2026 dragged me.\u201d He reportedly \u201cbit\u201d her, \u201cchoked\u201d her and \u201cstabbed his dog to death with a kitchen knife.\u201d<\/p>\n

She further stated that he \u201cwas on a mission to kill me\u201d in the petition.<\/p>\n

Gallegos also stated that Weahkee reportedly told her, \u201cI want you to have a miscarriage,\u201d in May 2023, when she was pregnant with their daughter.<\/p>\n

In the murder-suicide report, Sylvia Weahkee told authorities, \u201cAeriel and Manuel have a child together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tri-City Record<\/em> asked Ferrari about the status of the child. He confirmed \u201cthe child is fine\u201d and was not injured in the murder-suicide.<\/p>\n

Ferrari also said there would be \u201cno further investigation\u201d into the incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Multiple records requests lead to release of information<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-29927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29927"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80912,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29927\/revisions\/80912"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29927"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=29927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}