Jury convicts man of second-degree murder in killing at Albuquerque park

A man who admitted driving his pickup into an Albuquerque park and fatally striking a man in 2020 was convicted Monday by a jury of second-degree murder.

But jurors acquitted Jeremy Garcia, 33, of the more serious charge of first-degree murder in the June 8, 2020, killing of 37-year-old Carlos Moody after a confrontation between the two men at Coronado Park.

The 2nd Judicial District Court jury also found Garcia guilty of aggravated assault for attempting to run over Moody’s mother. She testified that she and her son were homeless and living at Coronado Park the day of his death.

Garcia faces up to 24½ years in prison at sentencing. District Judge Britt Baca-Miller has not scheduled his sentencing hearing.

Moody’s mother, Bernadette Barela, expressed mixed emotions Monday after the verdicts were read.

“Right now I’m pretty satisfied,” Barela said, noting that Garcia faces a lengthy prison sentence. But Barela said she would have preferred that jurors had returned a guilty verdict of first-degree murder, which would have required Garcia to remain in prison for at least 30 years.

“He was my only child,” she said of Moody. The two were very close, she said. “He pushed me out of the way so I wouldn’t get hit. He saved my life, basically.”

Barela testified last week that Moody pushed her out of the path of Garcia’s pickup just moments before it fatally struck Moody. Prosecutors alleged that Garcia intentionally rammed Moody, pinning his body against a trash can after the two argued.

At the time, Coronado Park at Third and Interstate 40 was the home of the city’s most visible sanctioned homeless encampment. City officials closed the park in August 2022, displacing an estimated 120 people camped there.

Throughout the five-day trial last week, jurors repeatedly watched a security video from a nearby business that showed Garcia’s pickup enter Coronado Park, remain there for several minutes, then careen out of the park with several people chasing the vehicle on foot. The fatal incident is largely concealed by trees.

Chief Assistant District Attorney Joshua Boone told jurors Friday in closing arguments that Garcia illegally and recklessly drove his truck into Coronado Park in search of Moody.

But Garcia’s attorney, John McCall, responded that Garcia feared people who were chasing his truck and unintentionally struck Moody as he attempted to flee the park.

McCall also told jurors that while the video showed many people in the park that day, the only eyewitness testimony was offered by Barela, who had a “vested interest” in Garcia’s conviction.