A New Mexico man, overwhelmed by guilt, borrowed a cellphone to call 911 and confess to the 2008 killing of his former landlord and also told police where the body was buried, authorities said on Tuesday.
Police said that Tony Ray Peralta, 37, of Roswell, was booked into the Chaves County jail on suspicion of murder.
Peralta went to a store on Monday afternoon, borrowed a cellphone to call 911 and told a dispatcher that he had killed someone, police said.
Photo: AP
Officers went to the store and Peralta was detained for questioning.
Police investigators then obtained a search warrant for a house where Peralta had been a tenant of 69-year-old William Blodgett.
He told them where he buried the body, and they found a boot, bones and dentures after removing plywood floorboards from a detached room on the side of the house.
A tearful Peralta told police during an interview that he did not know why he had killed Blodgett and that he just needed to confess, an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint showed.
Peralta told police he came forward because “his heart hurts” and that the killing had been eating at him.
He told the officer to tell Blodgett’s family “that he was a good man and that he didn’t deserve what I did.”
“I don’t have an excuse,” he was quoted in the affidavit as telling police. “A lot of people have an excuse. I don’t have one.”
Peralta was being represented by the major crimes unit within the public defender’s office.
“We are just beginning to work with Mr Peralta on this case, and we will make sure Mr Peralta’s due process is respected as this case starts to move through the court,” said attorney Ray Conley, who leads the unit.
The dentures found at the property were compared with Blodgett’s dental records — obtained in early 2009 after he was reported missing — and that led to a positive identification, police said.
Blodgett’s girlfriend and family had not seen him since late December 2008. She told police that Peralta, who was considered a suspect by police early on, allegedly had some sort of argument or fight with Blodgett, who had tried to evict him.
Authorities at the time had talked to Blodgett’s family, friends and neighbors and visited the home the two men shared, which appeared to have been abandoned with personal belongings still in place.
Police found no immediate signs of foul play and Blodgett’s vehicle was still there, the original missing person report showed.
Detectives would periodically drive by the house, but never spotted anyone. They also brought a dog trained to sniff for bodies to the property, but found nothing.
Police said the case went cold after investigators exhausted all leads until Peralta’s 911 call.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS