2 weeks Ago
State police have charged a Truchas teen with shooting and killing his father in the small Northern New Mexico mountain community on Easter Sunday. Ricky Romero, 18, of Truchas faces a count of second-degree murder in the death of 44-year-old Fernando Romero, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday in Rio Arriba County Magistrate Court. New Mexico State Police arrived at the men's home late Sunday afternoon and found the older Romero dead from a gunshot wound to his chest, his body lying on the floor inside the home, according to an affidavit.
Investigators allege the teenager admitted to police he had shot his father with a pistol while his father was charging toward him in the midst of a heated argument. The suspect told police his father chased him around the property and pointed a gun at him prior to the shooting, police wrote in the affidavit. Ricky Romero was arrested at the scene Sunday, and was booked into the Rio Arriba County jail in Tierra Amarilla.
Ricky Romero told officers he had gone to his grandmother's house next door, and after they had an argument she asked him to leave, police wrote. He said his father then came over to the grandmother's house and was yelling at the teen from her porch. The 18-year-old said his father threw firewood at him and he then threw back a handful of gravel, according to the affidavit.
A family friend — who made the call to 911 — told police a different story. The man was on the phone with Ricky Romero's grandmother at the time of the incident, he told police, and she told him the teen was "acting stupid" and chasing his father around. Over the phone, he heard four to seven gunshots, the man told police, according to the affidavit.
When the family friend — who was in Albuquerque at the time — called the woman back, she told him, "Ricky killed my son! Please come!" the man told police. The family friend also showed officers two videos taken almost a year ago that he said Fernando Romero asked him to keep "in case anything ever happened to him," police wrote. In a video filmed in May 2024, Ricky Romero was pointing an AK-47 at his father, who was filming with his phone, police alleged.
"Don't [expletive] with me, ese, 'cause I'm gonna blast you if you touch me," Ricky Romero said in the video, according to the affidavit. "I'll point it right at his [expletive] face — I'll break his cheap ass phone and he's gonna die! He's gonna die!" Ricky Romero told police after throwing gravel at his father, Fernando Romero chased him into the house. He said he then locked his father out, police wrote.
He described to police his father pointing a .38 revolver at him through a small window above the front door and saying, "I'mma kill you!" He told officers he then retrieved the pistol he used to shoot his father from "Fernando's side of the bed," the affidavit says, but "he did not know the whereabouts" of the revolver he said his father had aimed at him. Police wrote Ricky Romero told them his father was charging toward him when he shot him once in the chest, adding that he intended to shoot him in the belly.
The teen was scheduled to be arraigned on the murder charge Wednesday afternoon. State police wrote in a news release Tuesday the case was still under investigation..
