Suspected killer scheduled to be in Metro Court today.

Michael Paul Astorga, 29, is scheduled to make his first appearance at 1 p.m. today before Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court Judge Julie Altwies to hear charges against him and to have the judge set bail, if any.

It was two weeks ago today that 38-year-old Bernalillo County sheriff's deputy James McGrane Jr. was gunned down during a traffic stop at N.M. 337 in Tijeras.

Astorga was whisked into the Metropolitan Detention Center around 3 p.m. Tuesday after a long day that began around 2:30 a.m. as Mexican officials turned him over to U.S. authorities in El Paso.

Making the trip with Astorga from El Paso was 29-year-old Pete Chavez of Lemitar, who was picked up by Chihuahua state police in Juarez early Monday morning and gave his name as "Chris Romero" in an impromptu jailhouse interview Monday, claiming he'd just met Astorga in Ciudad Juarez.

Astorga is facing two open counts of murder -- in the killings of McGrane and last November's shooting death of 27-year-old Candido Martinez in Albuquerque -- as well as charges of evidence tampering and several counts of alleged probation violation.

Chavez, who is listed on the detention center Web site as being in the jail infirmary, is being held on relatively minor charges. It is unknown whether he will be charged with aiding and abetting Astorga's escape.

Meanwhile, Astorga's attorney, Gary Mitchell of Ruidoso, is stepping up his public defense of the man, who for 12 days, was New Mexico's, then one of America's, most wanted fugitives.

Mitchell has told reporters that he is concerned about a "lynch mob" atmosphere surrounding the search for Astorga.

And, Mitchell said on KOB-TV this morning, prosecutors are going to have a "hard time" proving Astorga was in the pickup truck that was pulled over by McGrane on March 22.

Few details of the investigation have been released so far and more than a dozen seach and arrest warrants in connection with the case against Astorga have been sealed, but an unsealed arrest warrant notes that Astorga owned the truck stopped by McGrane and the suspect was seen hours before the shooting with a handgun that could match the weapon used on McGrane, according to a story in this morning's Albuquerque Journal.

"We have much more than that," Sheriff Darren White told the Journal. "We have a very solid case. We have learned a lot in the past two weeks."

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