Plea deal resolves decades-old unsolved murders of three women

A man who admitted to police that he murdered three women in the late 1980s pleaded guilty this week to three counts of second-degree murder in those deaths.

A judge sentenced Paul Apodaca, 55, to 45 years in prison for three murders in 1988 and 1989 that had remained unsolved for decades.

District Judge Cindy Leos accepted the plea and sentenced Apodaca at a hearing Thursday in 2nd Judicial District Court.

In his plea agreement, Apodaca admitted to the shooting deaths of 18-year-old Kaitlyn Arquette and 13-year-old Stella Gonzales and the stabbing death of 21-year-old Althea Oakeley.

“He will spend the rest of his life in prison where he can’t hurt anyone else,” 2nd Judicial District Attorney Sam Bregman said in a written statement. “We hope this brings some sense of closure to the families of the victims who have waited so long for justice.”

The plea deal and sentencing brings an abrupt end to three unsolved murders dating back more than three decades.

A University of New Mexico security guard found Apodaca in July 2021 sitting outside UNM Children’s Hospital, according to court records. When the guard asked Apodaca if he was OK, Apodaca replied that he wanted to confess to three murders and asked for police.

Apodaca was wearing a GPS ankle monitor at the time and appeared injured and intoxicated. The homeless man also had an outstanding arrest warrant for failing to stay at the Westside Shelter as directed by his probation officer.

Apodaca admitted responsibility for the killings after two UNM police officers placed him in the back of a police car.

Albuquerque Police Department Chief Harold Medina said Friday he had known Oakley’s family as he was growing up and shared news with family members of Apodaca’s arrest.

“These heinous crimes haunted three families for more than 30 years, leaving behind a wake of pain and suffering,” Medina said in a written statement. “I hope all the families can now move forward and find closure in a long awaited resolution to their nightmare.”

Apodaca apparently had never been investigated in connection with any of the killings, which were widely reported at the time.

Arquette was driving home from a friend’s house in July 1989 when she was shot in the head on Lomas NE near Arno, just east of Downtown. Her car crashed into a light pole. Arquette died the following day.

Arquette’s mother, Lois Duncan, author of the bestselling novel “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” struggled to identify her daughter’s killer until her death in 2016. The case attracted national attention after Duncan wrote about the case in a nonfiction book, “Who Killed My Daughter?”

Gonzales was walking home with a friend on Central Avenue near the Rio Grande when she was shot in the back of the head on Sept. 9, 1988. She died two days later.

Oakley, a UNM student, was walking home from a party when she was stabbed to death. Apodaca also pleaded guilty to kidnapping and attempt to commit criminal sexual penetration in Oakley’s death, according to the plea agreement.