Albuquerque woman accused of encouraging teenage children to chase and kill man

A woman is accused of bringing her teenage children to confront a man and ordering her 16-year-old daughter to fatally shoot him — injuring another man in the process — last month in Northeast Albuquerque.

Raeanna Ruiz, 34, and her children, Dylana and Christopher Barela, 17, are each charged with an open count of murder and tampering with evidence in the Oct. 18 killing of 19-year-old Santiago Roybal.

It is unclear if any of the three have an attorney.

The mother was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center and her children into the Bernalillo County Juvenile Detention Center.

Dylana Barela told police a man had been looking through her window for months, and when she spotted Roybal in the backyard, assumed it was him, according to court records. She said her mother told her to shoot at Roybal after the family chased him to a nearby apartment.

Officers responded about 11:15 a.m. to a shooting in the 3200 block of Tulane NE, just northwest of Candelaria and Carlisle. Police found a man shot in the stomach and Roybal dead inside an apartment. The man shot in the stomach was taken to a hospital and told police Roybal was his friend but that he didn’t see who shot them through the door.

Home surveillance video shows two women and a man in a white SUV chasing Roybal into the complex, according to a complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. Detectives traced the SUV, which had “several distinct features,” to Ruiz through an unrelated incident report and learned she lived blocks away from the homicide scene.

Police said a search of Ruiz’s Facebook page found messages she sent another woman discussing chasing a man on the day of Roybal’s death. One day later, Ruiz sent messages asking for a lawyer recommendation and asking if she should tell the lawyer “everything.”

Detectives went to the home of the woman Ruiz was messaging and saw the SUV parked “conspicuously” in the driveway with a tarp covering it, according to the complaint. The woman told police Ruiz and her children had dropped off the SUV and “were very distraught and scared,” but they didn’t tell her what happened.

Police said phone records showed Ruiz was in the area when the homicide occurred.

On Monday, detectives arrested her and her two children.

Dylana Barela told police she believed a man was stalking her and looking in her window for months. She said on the day of the homicide, she saw a man in the backyard and told Ruiz before putting “her handgun” in her purse, according to the complaint. Dylana Barela told police her brother was also armed with a bat when the family got into the SUV to look for the man.

Police said Dylana Barela told them they spotted the man and chased him into an apartment complex. She said the man ran into an apartment and slammed the door when she heard “shoot through the door,” so she fired the gun several times.

Dylana Barela told police “it was not supposed to happen this way, and that they were only supposed to beat this guy and maybe pistol whip him a few times,” according to the complaint.