E-mail Story
Print Friendly
Send E-mail
Reprint story
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Ex-Wife Didn't Want Husband Out of Jail; Says No One Looked for Kids
By T.J. Wilham
Copyright © 2009 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Staff Writer
Richard Sanchez was wearing an ankle monitoring bracelet the day he abducted his three children in 2001.
That bracelet was found in his car at the bottom of Cochiti Lake, along with the bodies of Sanchez and his three children.
In an interview with the Journal on Friday, Sanchez's ex-wife and the mother of those children said the people who were supposed to be keeping track of her ex-husband knew he was missing the day before she did and did very little to try to find him.
The jail did not seek an escape warrant until four months after Sanchez went missing, according to court documents. Had one been issued, law enforcement across the country would have been alerted.
Sanchez, was placed into the Community Custody Program two months before he abducted the children, even though he was awaiting trial for brutally raping his sister-in-law and had been found guilty of violating a court order to stay away from his estranged wife.
"It's not easy," said his ex-wife, Susana Escamilla, while wiping tears. "Their lives were cut too short, and I just keep thinking about the way they went. It is so hard. I go to bed with nightmares seeing the car and seeing the car seat. ... They were so innocent."
In other developments Friday:
• Escamilla said she didn't really want her ex-husband out of jail, but she wrote a letter asking the court not to sentence him to jail for violating the protection order at the request of her ex-husband's attorney. That letter was a factor in a Metropolitan Court judge's decision to allow Sanchez into community custody.
• Gov. Bill Richardson said he will consider legislation that would bar people convicted of violating a protection order from being allowed into Community Custody Programs.
Ex-wife in fear
Richard Sanchez was arrested in August 2000 on the rape charges. He was accused of repeatedly raping his sister-in-law and assaulting her with a stun gun and a two-tined cooking fork. The assault occurred in front of a 5-year-old child.
In November 2000, he was indicted on 12 felonies in connection with the assault.
In the meantime, Escamilla filed for divorce and a protection order. In her petition for a protection order, she wrote that her husband threatened her and "would make sure I wouldn't live if I left him."
In March 2001, while on bond for the rape charges, Sanchez was arrested after he went to his ex-wife's home, forced his way in and showed her a stun gun, according to Metropolitan Court records.
About five days after that arrest, Escamilla wrote a letter to the court saying: "I do not want to see him go to jail for this matter. I would like to see him get counseling. He agrees he needs it."
Escamilla said Friday that her ex-husband and his attorney asked her to write a letter. She also said she feared what her ex-husband would do to her if she didn't write the letter.
"They have turned this into my fault that they put him on house arrest," Escamilla said. "I didn't think they were actually going to let him out of jail. I felt safer with him being in jail."
Metropolitan Court Judge Victoria Grant saw the letter in June 2001 just before sentencing Sanchez for violating the protection order. In the sentencing order, Grant wrote that Richard Sanchez was "allowed" CCP .
Metropolitan Court spokeswoman Janet Blair said Friday that the court didn't have any comment but said the final decision to place someone on CCP is up to the jail.
Attempts were made to reach MDC Director Ron Torres and Sanchez's attorney for comment late Friday. Both were unavailable. Torres has previously said the jail would never put someone on CCP who was accused of rape and violating a protection order without a judge's order.
New legislation
During a news conference Friday at the Albuquerque Family Advocacy Center, Richardson said he would support legislation that would limit jails and judges from putting domestic violence offenders into CCP.
"I am going to push that in the session," he said. "We have got to plug those leaks. We have to deal with that."
After the news conference, Richardson's domestic violence czar, Sharon Pino, agreed that Sanchez should not have been placed on CCP. "I would hope this would not happen again today," she said. "These are not remedies for these type of cases."
Lost sleep
Escamilla said that the weekend in August 2001 her children disappeared she had allowed them to spend time with Sanchez. She said Sanchez had an upcoming trial on the rape charges and had told the family he was going to prison for at least eight years.
When the children weren't returned that Sunday evening, Escamilla said she called her ex-husband's probation officer.
Police believe the person she called was actually a community custody monitor. Escamilla said that, when she talked to the monitor, he told her he had been by her ex-husband's house on Saturday and realized he wasn't there. Escamilla said the monitor didn't do anything.
APD issued an "attempt to locate" on Sanchez and the children the day Escamilla reported them missing.
Information on Sanchez and the children was also entered into a national database in October, when APD sought a warrant for custodial interference.
In the period since her children disappeared, Escamilla has had another child — a girl who is now 2.
Escamilla said she has lost a lot of sleep because she wrote the letter and allowed her children to spend the weekend with Sanchez.
"I wish I wouldn't have left them with him," Escamilla said. "I just didn't think he would have done that to those kids.
"It hurts cause I constantly think about what they went through that night."
You also can send comments via our comment form
|
|
