Albuquerque man accused of dismembering mother and keeping her in a freezer

A man has been arrested for allegedly dismembering his mother with a power saw and keeping her body parts in a freezer for nearly a month.

Leroy Vallejos, 49, was arrested and charged with an open count of murder and tampering with evidence in the death of 69-year-old Ernestina Lucero.

On Tuesday, officers were dispatched to the 300 block of Rhode Island NE, near Copper, after a home health care employee called and said they had not been in contact with Lucero since Sept. 12, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. Vallejos had contacted the company to tell them he had not seen her in a while, but he wanted to be paid for taking care of her.

“This caused the employee to attempt to make contact with (Lucero) at her residence to no avail,” the complaint states.

Vallejos’ neighbors told police they had not seen Lucero in over a month and the last time they saw her, she and Vallejos were loudly arguing, according to the complaint. Neighbors told police Vallejos told them his mother had run off to Mexico with her boyfriend.

Police spoke with Vallejos, who allowed officers to search his house and told them he had last seen his mother sometime between Oct. 15 and Oct. 17.

“He said his mother had left to Mexico but officers found her medication in her bedroom and continued to search the house,” Gilbert Gallegos, spokesperson for APD, wrote in a news release Wednesday.

Inside a large freezer, officers found what “appeared to be partially dismembered remains of an adult human being in plastic bags,” police wrote in the complaint.

Homicide detectives learned that on Oct. 17, a family member called to report that she had not spoken to Lucero in over a month, according to the complaint.

The family member told officers she was afraid of Vallejos because he had threatened her and hit her in the past, the complaint states. Lucero’s other son told officers he had gotten a notification that someone was using her credit card after she went missing.

Police said the person withdrawing cash was later identified as Vallejos in a surveillance photo.

Officers interviewed Vallejos, who told police that he had “snapped” and strangled his mother because he believed she and other family members were “giving their lives to darkness,” according to the complaint.

Vallejos believed his mother had “promised him to Satan” because of statements she had made, the complaint states. Vallejos told officers Lucero and “other conspirators” had spent the last 17 years trying to kill him.

Police said Vallejos told them he dismembered his mother’s body with a power saw.

“Only God’s a judge and I believe that with all my heart, but he just wasn’t there that day,” Vallejos told police. “I did a bad thing and I’ll own up to it. As a matter of fact, I wanna ask for a death sentence. I want to pay a life for a life.”

The man told police he let them search the home because he did not want to stop them from finding Lucero’s remains, the complaint states. He told police the only reason he did not turn himself in was because he loved his dogs and did not want to be separated from them or have them separated from each other.