Testimony begins in trial of woman charged in fatal I-25 crash

SANTA FE — Testimony began Friday in the trial of a woman charged in a high-speed chase and wrong-way crash that killed a Santa Fe police officer and a retired firefighter in 2022.

Jeannine Jaramillo, 49, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and other charges for allegedly leading police in a wrong-way pursuit on Interstate 25 near Santa Fe, leading to a fatal head-on crash and other wrecks and injuries.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Padgett Macias compared Jaramillo’s actions to “lighting a fuse and escaping seconds before the bomb explodes.”

Padgett Macias described for jurors a chaotic scene in the minutes before the fatal collisions as drivers on a busy section of I-25 scrambled to avoid the stolen Chevrolet Malibu.

“Some cars on I-25 move out of the way, some to the left, others to the right, the white Chevy Malibu playing chicken with the lives of everybody on I-25,” Padgett Macias said in opening statements.

Killed in a head-on collision were 43-year-old Santa Fe police officer Robert Duran and 62-year-old Frank Lovato, a retired firefighter from Las Vegas, New Mexico.

Lovato avoided a collision with the Malibu but crashed into Duran’s marked Santa Fe police car traveling the wrong way in pursuit of the Malibu. Both men died at the scene.

The Malibu then crashed into a pickup, disabling both vehicles, and Jaramillo was seen fleeing the wreckage.

Prosecutors told jurors they will view lapel and dash-camera video showing the extreme violence of the wreck.

The videos will show “that there are no words for the impact and devastation caused by the wrong-way driver,” Padgett Macias said. “Cars are totaled and Mr. Lovato’s truck and officer Robert Duran’s unit No. 286 are nearly disintegrated by the impact.”

Jaramillo’s attorney, David Silva, declined to address the jury on Friday, reserving his opening statement for another time.

The 1st Judicial District Court trial is expected to continue through Dec. 13 before Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer.

Jurors also viewed startling dash-camera video of the crash recorded by a Santa Fe police officer pursuing the Malibu, traveling the wrong way on I-25.

The video showed officers driving at high speed as cars and trucks pulled onto the shoulders. The vehicles initially drove away from Santa Fe, traveling north in the southbound lanes.

After several minutes, the Malibu doubled back across the median and traveled south in the northbound lanes in the final minutes before the fatal collision.

Bonita Coleman Iapoce, who witnessed the collision as she was driving to her home in Eldorado, southeast of Santa Fe, said the wreck sounded like “a loud explosion” with vehicles “going up into the air.” Iapoce gasped as she watched police video that showed the Malibu speed by, barely missing Iapoce’s car.

In a pretrial hearing Friday, Marlowe Sommer agreed to a request from prosecutors to admit evidence at trial for one of Jaramillo’s prior arrests for allegedly stealing a vehicle and fleeing law enforcement in Cibola County.

In that September 2021 incident, Jaramillo led Cibola County deputies on a high-speed chase through Grants and Milan and later told officers she was threatened by a man named “Lopez” who forced her to flee from law enforcement.

Marlowe Sommer rejected Silva’s argument that Jaramillo’s prior arrest could be prejudicial to her at trial.

That evidence could prove important because prosecutors allege that after the March 2022 crash, Jaramillo also told police that she was abducted at knifepoint by a man named Lopez who forced her to flee law enforcement, resulting in the fatal crash.

Pursuit begins

The police pursuit began at a Santa Fe apartment complex where Jaramillo told a resident to call 911 and report that she was being threatened by a man.

Richard Musser, a resident at Vizcaya Apartments, 2500 Sawmill Road, testified Friday that he called 911 after a woman in a white Malibu pulled up in front of his car and told him a man in her passenger seat was armed and threatening her.

Musser told jurors he later saw the Malibu driving from the complex and was “100% sure” that the woman was alone and driving the vehicle.

Jaramillo’s husband, Jerry Chavez, testified Friday that he and Jaramillo were driving to Albuquerque from Las Vegas but stopped in Santa Fe, where they spent the night in the car.

The morning of the fatal crash, the two began arguing and Jaramillo told a resident at the apartment complex to call 911, Chavez told jurors.

Chavez told jurors he then walked around the complex to “cool off” and Jaramillo drove away without him when police arrived at the complex.

Police pursued the white Malibu in the belief that a woman had been abducted and was being threatened, Padgett Macias told jurors.

Jaramillo led police on a dangerous pursuit, “running red lights, U-turning whenever and wherever, and all at crazy high speeds,” she told jurors.

Jaramillo then entered I-25 at Old Pecos Trail, using the off-ramp as an on-ramp and traveling the wrong way on the interstate at speeds of more than 90 mph, she said.

“She lures the officers into a fatal trap that is now going south in northbound lanes” of I-25, Padgett Macias told jurors.

After the Malibu was disabled in a crash, Jaramillo stuck to her story that she had been abducted by a boyfriend named Mark Lopez, who fled into the bushes after the crash, she said.

Jaramillo identified from a photograph a man named Mark Lopez as the man who had abducted her, but New Mexico State Police investigators quickly learned that the man had a solid alibi and did not know Jaramillo, Padgett Macias told jurors.

Jaramillo was arrested after police learned that only the driver’s side airbag had inflated during the crash and sensor data indicated that the passenger seat was unoccupied during the pursuit, she said.

Testimony is scheduled to resume Monday.