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Jury convicts man of first-degree murder in ex-girlfriend's 2024 shooting death
Alexander Ortiz, left, appears in 2nd Judicial District Court in Albuquerque during his trial on a charge of first-degree murder. Jurors convicted him of the charge on Thursday.
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Jurors on Thursday found Alexander Ortiz guilty of fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend in her bedroom and fleeing through a ground-floor window in 2024.
A 2nd Judicial District Court jury convicted Ortiz, 22, of first-degree murder in the shooting death of 23-year-old Alianna Farfan on Jan. 11, 2024.
Ortiz remains scheduled for trial in March in an unrelated killing. Prosecutors allege that Ortiz fatally shot Nichole Malonado, 25, outside the Adam Market at Central and Indiana on Jan. 17, 2024, just six days after Farfan’s killing.
Ortiz faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison in Farfan’s killing at a sentencing hearing scheduled Sept. 29 before Judge Cindy Leos.
Jurors apparently rejected an argument offered by Ortiz’s attorney that someone other than Ortiz fired the fatal gunshot.
In February, Farfan’s uncle leaped over a railing during a pretrial hearing and attacked Ortiz, setting off a brawl in Leos’ courtroom that involved several members of both families.
Prosecutors told jurors this week that Ortiz and Farfan went into her bedroom and locked the door shortly before the killing. Others in the apartment kicked in the door and found Farfan fatally shot in the head.
Assistant District Attorney Derek Berg told jurors on Tuesday that Ortiz pushed out the screen and climbed out the window in the moments before two people forced their way into Farfan’s bedroom.
No weapons were found in the bedroom, Berg said.
Ortiz’s attorney, John McCall, argued in opening statements Tuesday that another man in the apartment fatally shot Farfan. However, police focused on Ortiz to the exclusion of other possible suspects, McCall told jurors.
