Man Sentenced In Wife’s 2008 Death

A Rio Rancho man convicted of killing his wife in 2008 was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in prison, according to District Attorney Lemuel Martinez.

Leo Noonan, 54, was arrested June 2010 and charged with the murder of his 42-year-old wife, Angela Noonan, who was last seen Oct. 17, 2008. Her sister reported her missing Oct. 22 of the same year. Two years later, workers found her remains on the King Ranch.

Noonan’s undoing was an apparent confession to his ex-wife about killing the victim with a hammer and the conflicting stories he told others about her disappearance. It was enough for a grand jury to indict him in 2010. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and tampering with evidence last month, Martinez said. He also received three years for the tampering charge but will serve that concurrently with the murder sentence. The almost two years he spent in county jail will count toward his prison sentence.

Martinez said as a violent offender, Noonan must serve at least 85 percent of his time behind bars or just over 10 years. That would make him eligible for release around 2020. Martinez said the maximum sentence for a second-degree murder conviction is 15 years. He said his office approved a plea agreement in the case because it did not have enough evidence for first-degree murder.

“We could not prove premeditation,” he said. “He could have argued self-defense. It may have been hard to get a conviction for a first-degree murder charge.”

According to an arrest warrant, Noonan had a history of domestic violence.

Angela Noonan had told her ex-husband days before she disappeared that she and Leo Noonan had been arguing, and she feared he was going to kill her. Noonan’s former wife called police after he, according to the arrest warrant, confessed to her that Angela Noonan woke him up sometime in October 2008 and became aggressive with him and that he threw a hammer at her, hitting her head. He also told said he kept Angela Noonan’s body in their garage approximately six weeks before wrapping her in plastic and driving to the mesa, where her body was found.
— This article appeared on page C2 of the Albuquerque Journal