Santa Fe man charged with fatally stabbing mother at Rancho Viejo home over weekend

SANTA FE — A Santa Fe man is facing a count of murder and other charges on suspicion of fatally stabbing his mother at a home they shared in the Rancho Viejo De Santa Fe housing development over the weekend.

Deven Josiah Roybal, 26, was charged this morning with first-degree murder, assault with intent to commit a violent felony and tampering with evidence, both third-degree felonies tied to the murder of his mother, 50-year-old Jennifer Vigil.

Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office deputies identified the 50-year-old’s body in the kitchen of her Johnson Mesa home on Sunday after Vigil’s sister discovered the remains and initially misidentified them as Roybal’s during a 911 call to law enforcement.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit filed on Tuesday in Santa Fe Magistrate Court, the 50-year-old was in the fetal position and her face was partially covered. The court document also noted that the woman’s blue Ford Fusion was missing from the home, where Roybal also resided.

The 26-year-old’s brother, who is under a restraining order to avoid the home, also contacted law enforcement over the weekend, repeating the false report that Roybal had been killed after speaking with Vigil’s sister.

Police ruled out the brother as a suspect, however, after interviewing him about the incident and his whereabouts prior to his mother’s death.

During a search of Vigil’s home over the weekend, a field investigator from the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator confirmed stab wounds on Vigil’s back, abdomen and forearm, according to the affidavit.

Investigators also found a large kitchen knife with blood and hair on it, as well as a bloody shoe print on a kitchen tile and a fingernail clipping nearby. Two cameras inside the residence had also been disconnected, a sheriff’s office detective noted, and a journal believed to belong to Vigil contained a final handwritten entry dated March 19.

During their investigation, deputies learned that the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office had arrested Roybal Saturday morning near Farmington, roughly 200 miles northwest of Santa Fe, for DWI and driving with an invalid license in Vigil’s blue Ford Fusion.

Investigators obtained a search warrant for the 26-year-old’s detainee property box, where they discovered Nike shoes with a zig-zag tread pattern they say matches the footprint found in the kitchen where Vigil died.

They also took photos of Roybal’s hands, which had two broken fingernails they believe to be consistent with the clipping discovered in the home he had shared with his mother.

In a separate domestic violence case last month, Roybal was charged with battery against a household member, criminal damage to property of a household member and interference with communications related to an altercation with his mother.

A competency evaluation was ordered in that case for Roybal, who family members said suffers from schizophrenia and was also a narcotics user.

No new court dates had been set in the murder case of early afternoon Tuesday.

John Miller is the Journal’s northern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at jmiller@abqjournal.com.