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More than four years after the body of Silver City resident Rachel Torrisi Sierra was found alongside a lonely stretch of N.M. 78 with most of her face blown off, the man accused of killing her — Allen Hurley — is now on trial, the Silver City Sun-News reported.
The first murder trial in Grant County since 2009 began Monday with Chief Deputy District Attorney George Zsoka telling jurors in opening statements that Sierra paid the ultimate price for her kindness in taking Hurley and his family in and that the killing was deliberate and premeditated, the Sun-News said.
Hurley and his wife Bernadette and their young son stayed with Sierra in her trailer for nine months when Sierra disappeared on Dec. 6, 2008, the paper reported. Her body was found two days later, but it would be two and a half years later before an arrest was made in the case.
Defense attorney Gary Mitchell told jurors that Hurley, now 27, was diagnosed at an early age as having moderate to severe mental retardation, that he has multiple learning disorders and suffered injuries in a 2006 auto accident that left him with seizures, according to the Sun-News.
“We are not dealing with someone who is like us,” Mitchell said of his client.
The trial is expected to continue through Friday, the Sun-News said.
8:10am 8/3/11 — Slain Silver City Woman’s Car Found in Elephant Butte Lake
By ABQnews Staff
A car belonging to Silver City slaying victim Rachel Torrisi Sierra was pulled from Elephant Butte Lake on Monday, the Silver City Sun-News reported.
Fishermen using sonar discovered something bigger than a fish beneath the waters and alerted citizen divers who went to check out the submerged object, Sgt. Chris Ponce of the Grant County Sheriff’s Office told the Sun-News.
When divers found it was a car, they notified Elephant Butte Lake State Park police, who pulled up the car and ran the registration, discovering that it belonged to Sierra, whose body was found alongside N.M. 78 in Grant County in 2008, the paper reported.
Allen Hurley, 25, of Las Cruces, was arrested in May and charged with murdering the 34-year-old Sierra and is being held at the Grant County Detention Center on a $100,000 cash-only bond, the Sun-News said.
Bernadette Hurley, 41, Allen Hurley’s wife, was arrested July 28 in Dona Ana County and charged with two counts of forgery on Sierra’s account, according to the Sun-News. She is being held at the Dona Ana County Detention Center on a $7,000 secured bond.
The Hurleys had been living with Sierra up until the time she disappeared in 2008 and were considered early suspects in the case, the paper reported.
Ponce said it is unknown at this time whether the vehicle pulled from Elephant Butte Lake was connected to Sierra’s murder or any other crime, but the vehicle was treated as a crime scene and processed for evidence in an ongoing investigation, the Sun-News said.
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9:20am 5/26/11 — Las Cruces Man To Be Tried for Murder in Silver City Woman’s Death
A Las Cruces man who allegedly told police that he shot Silver City resident Rachel Torrisi Sierra more than two years ago, had planned the killing and took her to a deserted stretch of state highway and shot her “execution style,” was bound over Wednesday for trial on an open count of murder, the Silver City Sun-News reported.
Magistrate Court Judge Maurine Laney ruled Wednesday there was probable cause to try Allen Hurley, 25, of Las Cruces, on an open count of murder, despite court-appointed defense attorney Gary Mitchell’s contention that first-degree murder be taken off the table because Sierra’s killing was “a combination of accident, self-defense or misfortune,” the Sun-News said.
Deputy District Attorney George Zsoka said Hurley would likely be arraigned in state District Court in the next 30 to 45 days, the paper reported.
Hurley is being held at the Grant County Detention Center on a cash-only bond of $100,000, according to the Sun-News.
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8:45am 5/12/11 — Las Cruces Man Held in 2008 Death of Silver City Woman
More than two years after the body of Rachel Torrisi Sierra, a 34-year-old Silver City woman, was found shot in the head and tossed alongside N.M. 78 in Grant County, the man accused of killing her is under arrest, the Silver City Sun-News reported.
Allen Hurley, 25, of Las Cruces, was arrested Monday by State Police in Dona Ana County on a municipal warrant out of Deming for failure to pay $250 in fines, and was expected to be booked Wednesday in the Grant County Detention Center on a $100,000 cash-only bond, the Sun-News said.
In an interview Monday, Hurley reportedly told State Police investigators at first that he’d accidentally shot Sierra, then later told them he’d shot the woman in self-defense, the paper reported.
State Police first got involved in the cold case in February when Grant County sheriff’s Sgt. Chris Ponce asked for assistance, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.
Sierra’s body was found by a motorist driving on N.M. 78 on Dec. 8, 2008, the Sun-News said. At the time, sheriff’s investigators interviewed Allen and Bernadette Hurley, who both lived with Sierra but claimed to have been in Las Cruces at the time of Sierra’s disappearance on Dec. 6, 2008, according to the Sun-News.
An autopsy report showed that Sierra had been shot in the back of the head with a high-powered rifle, the Sun-News said.
Grant County Sheriff Raul Villanueva credited the partnership between his office and State Police for cracking the cold case, the paper reported.
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8:45am 12/15/08 — Victim of Apparent Homicide ID’d
Silver City woman whose body was found last Monday near N.M. 78 had been missing since Dec. 6.
The state Office of the Medical Investigator has identified the woman whose body was found alongside N.M. 78 last Monday as 34-year-old Rachel Torrisi Sierra of Silver City, the Silver City Sun-News reported.
The case is being investigated as a homicide, but Grant County sheriff’s investigators would not comment on the cause of death or possible motives or suspects in the case, the Sun-News said.
“We are following up on a lot of investigative leads we’ve got at this time,” sheriff’s Lt. Joe Sublasky told the paper.
Sierra had been reported missing after failing to show up for her jobs at Sonic Drive-in and as a carrier for the Silver City Daily Press, according to The Associated Press. Her mother, Janine Tyler, says she was last seen Dec. 6.
6:30am 12/10/08 — Hunters Find Woman’s Body in Grant County: Sheriff’s deputies need help in identifying body found on the side of N.M. 78 Monday afternoon.
An unidentified female body was found by hunters shortly after noon on Monday on the side of N.M. 78, and Grant County sheriff’s investigators still hadn’t identified the woman as of late Tuesday, the Silver City Sun-News reported.
The woman’s body was taken to the state Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque for an autopsy, and the death is being investigated as a homicide, the Sun-News said.
Anyone with information on this case is asked to call the Grant County Sheriff’s Department at (575) 574-0100.
