Robert Chavez, the head of the AZ Boys gang, was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder on April 8 by the New Mexico Supreme Court.
At the end of 2019, Chavez was found guilty of killing Maximiliano Griego and Griego’s girlfriend Mary Hudson Gutierrez in Alamogordo in 2009. Investigators said that Chavez was in charge of a drug crime ring that operated from Arizona to New Mexico.
Police say Griego’s death was caused by a drug “territory” disagreement and was done with the help of Chavez’s brother Joe Chavez and in front of his nephew Joey Chavez.
In his appeal, Chavez said that his nephew’s statement, who was 15 at the time of the crime, was not supported by other evidence. The justices did not agree with this point of view. In his appeal, Chavez also said that the district court made a mistake when it let a police officer talk about a witness statement and secondhand evidence. There was a unanimous decision from the Supreme Court that “the district court did not abuse its discretion in making either of the evidentiary rulings challenged by Defendant.”
Chavez was given two life terms in a row for the killings. He is also in prison for 21 years for a murder that is not linked to the drug crimes he is currently facing.
Assistant’s Confession Brings The Cold Case Back To Life
For ten years, no one knew who killed Griego and Hudson Gutierrez until Joey Chavez decided to testify in exchange for a shorter sentence in a separate felony case.
Court records say that the Chavez brothers tricked Griego into going to their house in Alamogordo, where they beat him and tied him up with zip ties. The two men then took him to Hudson Gutierrez’s house in the trunk of their car with the help of their nephew.
When Griego and Hudson Gutierrez’s 15-year-old daughter woke up to the sound of gunshots, she found both of them with gunshot wounds to the head in a bedroom of the house.
Az Boys Gang Members Have Been Found Guilty of Other Murders
The state Supreme Court confirmed Chavez’s conviction for the second time. In 2021, the Supreme Court said that a district court judge did not make a mistake when she let Chavez and Matias Loza be tried together for the murder of Richard Valdez.
Per court records, Chavez, Loza, and other AZ Boys killed Valdez, put his body in a car, and then set fire to the car. Valdez was also hit before he was shot.
The murder and other charges against Loza were dropped in 2019. In an appeal by Loza, the state Supreme Court said that the fact that he was charged with murdering Valdez did not mean he was being tried twice for the same crime. Evidence from the murder case was used against Loza on a racketeering charge.
The 2009 guilty plea by Joe Chavez for killing Griego and Hudson Gutierrez. He told the police in 2017 that he was guilty of killing Valdez.
The AZ Boys gang was thought to have been involved in selling meth, killing people, laundering money, setting fires, and trying to pay police.
