Dec. 1—A woman accused of leading police on a high-profile chase on Interstate 25 that claimed the lives of a Santa Fe officer and a retired Las Vegas, N.M., firefighter will go on trial this week.
Jeannine June Jaramillo, 49, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder — punishable by up to life in prison — and six other crimes in connection with the March 2022 incident. Jury selection is scheduled for Wednesday, amid the presentation of evidence and testimony Friday begins in state court in Santa Fe. The trial is expected to continue through December 13.
Officials say the events leading to the deaths of Officer Robert Duran, 43, and retired firefighter Frank Lovato, 62, began when Jaramillo falsely told a pedestrian in the parking lot of a Sawmill Road apartment complex that she was being held against her will . The loss of Duran, only the third service-related death in the Santa Fe Police Department and the first since 1933, forever changed the lives of his family, including a wife and two sons.
“It’s been tough for all of us these last two and a half years, just trying to heal, adapt and move forward… and now of course we have to go to court and relive it all again in the middle of the holidays. I’m definitely not looking forward to it,” Duran’s sister, Angela Gamino, said in an interview last week.
“But in a way it’s like, let’s just do this and get through it,” she added.
Jaramillo’s attorney, David Silva, did not respond to messages seeking comment. A person who answered a phone number for the Lovato family declined to comment.
Jaramillo’s criminal history includes being accused twice before of stealing vehicles and leading officers on chases, and framing a man who could never be found. The jury likely won’t know about this, in accordance with rules that prohibit prosecutors from introducing evidence of other bad acts against suspects at trial.
Chase in the wrong direction
According to an arrest warrant affidavit detailing the March 2022 pursuit, Jaramillo told the person in the apartment complex parking lot to call 911 and say her male passenger was armed with a knife and did not want her out of the Chevrolet Malibu leave what she was driving. Santa Fe police attempted to pull over the Malibu, according to the affidavit, but the driver evaded them in a residential area and then drove north in the southbound lanes of Interstate 25.
When the car reached an emergency turnaround area, the document said, it made a U-turn and began driving south in the northbound lanes of the highway. Police followed.
About a mile past the Old Pecos Trail exit, Lovato, who was driving north, swerved to avoid a head-on collision with the fleeing Malibu and then crashed into Duran, who was driving south in the northbound lanes to avoid the Malibu to chase. Both men died. The Malibu continued to drive, sideswiping a white pickup before coming to a stop a short distance away on the shoulder, according to reports at the time.
Jaramillo was the only person to emerge from the car, which police said was reported stolen in Las Vegas, NM. A man named Jerry Chavez testified at a preliminary hearing that he had been in the car with Jaramillo before the incident and that they had parked at the apartment complex after driving from Las Vegas because the Malibu was low on gas. Their plan, he said, was to beg for gas money in the morning in hopes of getting on to Albuquerque.
Chavez told the court they argued the next day and Jaramillo wanted him to get out of the car, but he refused because he didn’t want to be stranded in Santa Fe. After she stopped by the pedestrian and asked him to call police, Chavez said, he heard sirens and got out because he didn’t want to get into trouble.
State law allows prosecutors to charge someone with murder when suspected of killing someone while committing another crime, in this case aggravated fleeing a police officer. The charge does not require suspicion of intentional murder.
As an alternative to the murder charge, jurors will have the option of convicting Jaramillo of first-degree murder, a “depraved mind,” which requires the state to prove that she acted without regard for human life and in a manner that she knew it created a high probability. of death or great bodily harm.
Despite evidence showing she was alone in the car at the time, Jaramillo stuck to her story that she had been kidnapped after her arrest.
The Cibola County Sheriff’s Office charged Jaramillo about six months earlier in two separate cases involving the same elements. The charges had been dismissed pending further information, but were refiled after the Santa Fe incident. Jaramillo pleaded guilty in August 2022 to aggravated fleeing and unlawful seizure of a motor vehicle, as part of a plea agreement that ordered her to serve 18 months in prison.
A legacy of service
Duran grew up in Artesia and then spent about a decade in California before he and other family members returned to New Mexico and settled in Rio Rancho, where their younger brother and mother also live, Gamino said.
Their parents divorced when Duran was 11, she said, and his decision to become a police officer was a natural outgrowth of becoming the family’s protector in his father’s absence.
Duran’s wife and mother both tried, but were unable to return to work after his death. His sons, who were both in high school at the time, struggled to adjust to life without their father, Gamino said. Her son, who had graduated from college with a degree in marketing a few months before his uncle’s death, has since decided he wants to serve his community as his uncle did and has become a firefighter, she said.
The family has been trying to adjust to the new normal and continue holiday traditions, Gamino said.
‘But it’s not the same. He was such a big part of us. There is a big hole in our hearts.’
Gamino said she and her sister-in-law plan to attend the trial, but Duran’s children and mother may not make it through the whole ordeal.
“She struggles every day,” Gamino said.
Gamino said her three children have decided not to attend.
“They just want to remember him as their loving, fun uncle and not have to hear and see things they don’t want to,” she said.
