ABQ man sentenced to life in 2023 murder-for-hire killing

An Albuquerque man was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison in the 2022 shooting death of 46-year-old Gary Escareno that police described as a murder-for-hire killing.

Freddy Granger, 43, pleaded guilty this past week to first-degree murder in the May 1, 2022, killing in the area of Candelaria and Juan Tabo NE. Granger was one of three people arrested in the killing.

Albuquerque police alleged that Martin Trujillo, 57, hired Granger and Cassandra Dominguez, 39, to kill Escareno in revenge for an alleged robbery.

Trujillo, 57, was indicted in 2nd Judicial District Court with first-degree murder and other charges in Escareno’s death, court records show. His May 12 trial was canceled and charges remain pending.

Dominguez, 40, pleaded guilty on March 12 to second-degree murder and conspiracy in the killing and faces 10 to 18 years in prison, according to court records. Her sentencing has not been scheduled.

Police responded around 10:30 p.m. on May 1 to the area of Candelaria and Juan Tabo NE after a car crashed into a pole, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. They found Escareno in the driver’s seat with a gunshot wound to the head.

Witnesses told police they heard gunfire and saw a man and a woman fleeing the scene.

Police said they found messages in Escareno’s phone from a woman who asked him to pick up a woman and her boyfriend at the Taco Bell at Lomas and San Mateo. Security footage from the Taco Bell showed Escareno pick up a pair who matched the description of those seen fleeing the shooting.

A friend of Escareno’s told police that Escareno failed to split profits with Trujillo from a rental assistance scam, the complaint said. The complaint didn’t elaborate on what the scam involved.

A witness told police he saw Trujillo pay Granger for the homicide with $15,000 worth of methamphetamine, fentanyl, a vehicle and cash, the complaint said.

Granger was sentenced in 2023 to 25 years in prison on federal charges for selling two firearms to an undercover Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officer, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico.

Granger pleaded guilty in March 2023 to single counts of being a felon in possession of firearm, carjacking and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, the statement said.

Court records show Granger was sentenced in 2015 to 10 years after taking a plea deal in the nonfatal stabbing of a woman outside an East Central motel.