Trial goes to jury in woman's 2021 strangulation

The strangulation of Rosalejandra Cisneros “can only be described as overkill” because Lee Cuellar first used his hands, then a tourniquet, to kill his wife, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday.

Prosecutors said in closing arguments Wednesday that Cuellar, 45, felt threatened by his 26-year-old wife’s thriving career as a model and growing independence.

“Her modeling career was starting to take off,” prosecutor Christine Jablonsky told jurors. “She was actively in school trying to get a degree. She was spending time with people outside of her marriage.”

Attorneys made closing arguments Wednesday in Cuellar’s trial on a charge of first-degree murder in his wife’s 2021 killing in their Southwest Albuquerque home.

“I think he loved her and needed that control over her so badly that when he felt it slipping away, that’s when he lost it,” Jablonsky said.

Cuellar’s attorney, Amy Williams, responded that the brutality of Cisneros’ killing speaks to the depths of her client’s mental illness at the time the U.S. Army veteran killed his wife.

Cuellar retired eight months before the killing after 22 years of service in the Army and the Army National Guard. At the time of his wife’s killing, Cuellar was teaching ROTC classes at Kennedy Middle School.

Cuellar suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other mental health conditions as a result of his military service and struggled to find treatment services, Williams told jurors.

“When you look at the terrible way that Ally died, I would want you to consider that the brutality of this murder is direct evidence of the psychosis that (Cuellar) was suffering,” Williams said.

By the time of the killing, Cuellar had resolved to commit suicide by self-immolation, she said.

Defense attorneys argued that Cuellar killed his wife because he believed she had become a demon who meant harm to Cuellar and his family.

“It is evidence of the danger he perceived from this woman that had become, to him, a demon,” Williams said.

“Ally was not there anymore,” she said, using Cuellar’s nickname for Cisneros. “For Lee (Cuellar), this demon intended to cause himself and his family harm, and he impulsively responded to what he perceived to be a threat from that demon.”

Jurors were expected to begin deliberations Thursday following a seven-day trial in 2nd Judicial District Court before Judge Britt Baca.

The trial is Cuellar’s second on the same charges. His first trial in January ended in mistrial after Baca found that jurors heard statements that should have been excluded.

Within hours of the killing, Cuellar flagged down an Albuquerque police officer at Tiguex Park in Old Town by throwing a bottle of pills at her car, police said. The responding officer, Marcy Duran, recognized Cuellar as a fellow member of the New Mexico Army National Guard, Duran testified last week.

Cuellar immediately told Duran that he had killed his wife and that police could find her body in the couple’s home in the 9900 block of Rio Madre SW, near Dennis Chavez and 98th. Police found Cisneros in the couple’s bedroom.

Prosecutors relied heavily on Cuellar’s own words during an hourslong interview with an Albuquerque Police Department detective the day of Cisneros’ killing. Prosecutors played lengthy portions of the interview recorded on an officer’s lapel camera.

In the interview, Cuellar described Cisneros’ killing in detail, describing how he choked her with his hands, then made a tourniquet with a muscle shirt and a stick of wood.

“I made sure she was dead,” Cuellar said during the interview. “I choked her with my muscle shirt. I saw her face change and I didn’t stop.”

The deliberate nature of the killing and the detail Cuellar provided to police indicate that his mental illness “didn’t rise to the level that he completely lost control of reality,” Jablonsky told jurors.

“There is no question that on May 23, 2021, (Cuellar) knew what he was doing,” she said. “He understood the consequences of his actions. He had the intent to kill Rosalejandra.”