Mayor Keller, Chief Geier on Progress in Vigil Murder Case

Aug. 19, 2020

Mayor Tim Keller and APD Chief Mike Geier released the following statements about news today that the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed firearms charges against the individual identified by APD homicide detectives as a suspect in the 2019 murder of Jacqueline Vigil.

The suspect was identified and arrested as a result of the work of APD homicide detectives long before Operation Legend and the U.S. Attorney got involved.

“This senseless murder shook Albuquerque because we all felt the loss of Jacqueline Vigil,” Mayor Keller said. “We vowed to bring the killer to justice and to continue the fight against violent criminals in our city. For many months we have been aware that we were making real progress on the case but couldn’t comment publicly, or push back on a lot of myths being said about our police department. We are fortunate that APD has been doing the hard work over the last nine months to identify a suspect and ensure he was locked up and not able to commit additional crimes while they investigated the murder. We are all calling again on the prosecutors to move this case forward swiftly so the killer is brought to justice for the harm he has caused to our community.”

“For the last nine months, our homicide detectives used many of their investigative tools, including our aggressive tracking of guns used in crimes, to build a case, and track down the suspect in Texas,” Chief Geier said. “We also benefited from Crimestoppers and productive tips from concerned citizens, to assist detectives. While we haven’t been able to publicly discuss this investigation, I hope the people of Albuquerque realize that we don’t give up on victims of violent crime.”