Nov. 19 – A Santa Fe man charged with murder two years ago after being accused of forcing his girlfriend to kill a woman with a sword has rejected a plea deal offered by prosecutors.
Isaac Apodaca had already signed the agreement; However, District Judge T. Glenn Ellington tore the document during a hearing Tuesday after Apodaca’s attorney, Jay Nair, told the court that his client “doesn’t want to accept that plea offer anymore.”
Nair recently took over the case of a pair of lawyers who filed a motion in October asking him to withdraw as Apodaca’s lawyers because he was no longer willing to talk to any of them.
Apodaca’s rejection of the plea deal marks the latest in a series of delays in resolving the case, which was initially set to go to trial in August 2023. The most recent trial dates were set for December, but Nair asked the judge to postpone the proceedings because he needed time to get up to speed on the case.
Apodaca, who is in jail awaiting trial, attended Tuesday’s hearing but did not speak.
The details of his proposed plea deal were unclear, as Deputy District Attorney Haley Murphy did not disclose the terms of the deal Tuesday.
Apodaca, 27, and his girlfriend, Kiara McCulley, 21, are both charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the killing of 21-year-old Grace Jennings on October 29, 2022. Authorities say Jennings was fatally stabbed with a metal sword three feet tall in a detached garage at McCulley’s mother’s home in south Santa Fe, where the couple lived at the time.
Jennings had previously dated Apodaca, also knew McCulley, and had texted Apodaca the night before the murder asking if she could sleep over, according to a criminal complaint filed in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court.
Authorities believe Apodaca and McCulley spent the evening plotting to kill Jennings while she slept next to them. According to the indictment, McCulley is accused of killing Jennings with the sword the next day.
Police responded to the scene in response to a call from Apodaca’s mother, who said her son told her McCulley had killed someone, according to a court motion seeking pretrial detention of the suspects.
When officers arrived, they found Jennings’ body covered in stab wounds and a sword with blood on the blade, the movement said. Police said Jennings also had injuries consistent with an attempt to decapitate her.
Officers found text messages on Apodaca’s phone that linked both suspects to Jennings’ murder, the complaint said. Apodaca told police that McCulley had been planning to kill Jennings since 2020.
One of his messages to McCulley reads: “I want you to kill her, you must end your suffering by ending her joy,” the complaint said. Apodaca told police he meant what he wrote in the messages and stated he wanted McCulley to kill Jennings.
A judge ruled that McCulley was not competent to stand trial in November 2022, and she was sent to the New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute in Las Vegas, NM, for treatment. She was found competent by a state agency evaluation on December 21 and was transferred to the Santa Fe County Jail on January 10, 2023.
Attorneys for McCulley and Apodaca told the court in March that they expected both cases to be resolved through plea agreements. But in August, attorneys said the cases had been delayed by a backlog of DNA evidence awaiting testing at the state’s forensic lab in Santa Fe.
Nair told the court Tuesday that he will continue to try to negotiate a plea deal with the state for Apodaca, but at this time he said, “We have no agreement on a plea deal.”
