A federal inmate, who is also a suspect in the disappearance and apparent murder of a Roswell man six years ago, will remain incarcerated at the Chaves County Detention Center while he awaits trial.
Judge Jared Kallunki of New Mexico's 5th Judicial District Court Wednesday approved a motion to hold 35-year-old Alfonso R. Vasquez Jr. pending trial or until otherwise authorized by the court.
The decision to grant the motion came after the May 3 Google Meet hearing where Gregory Gaudette, Vasquez's attorney, waived the right to pretrial detention and preliminary hearings in the case.
Gaudette declined to comment on the case when contacted Monday by the Roswell Daily Record.
Vasquez was charged in November 2022 with one count each of first-degree murder; tampering with evidence; and firearms or destructive devices receipt, transportation or possession by a felon in relation to the 2018 disappearance and apparent death of 39-year-old Freddy Bersane.
Prior to last week, Vasquez was serving a sentence for a federal felon in possession of a firearm charge at a federal penitentiary in Colorado in an unrelated case.
Late last month, Hunter Spindle, deputy district attorney for the 5th Judicial District Attorney's Office, said despite the fact Vasquez was already serving a prison term, he opted to file a motion for pretrial detention, for “ease of prosecution.”
In the motion, Spindle argued pretrial detention is necessary due to Vasquez's violent criminal history, the potential danger he presents to possible witnesses and the belief by investigators that Vasquez may have been involved in the death of another man, who was allegedly an accomplice in Bersane's death.
Per court records, Vasquez is believed to have fatally shot Bersane on Sept. 22, 2018, while the two men, along with a third man and Vasquez's girlfriend, were doing drugs inside Vasquez's bedroom at a 500 block of South Kansas Avenue house after Bersane said something offensive to Vasquez's girlfriend.
Bersane's body was never found, though court documents state some individuals questioned by police, including a fellow inmate at the federal penitentiary in Colorado, claimed having heard that Bersane's body was dismembered and disposed of after the killing.
A DNA test was performed on a blood stain found on the carpet of the room where Bersane was believed to have been shot to death. Results concluded the blood matched that of Bersane and the amount of blood needed to create such a stain would be from an injury that would have resulted in the death of a person who did not receive immediate medical attention.
A magazine from a Ruger .380 firearm was also found underneath the carpet where the blood stain was located. The magazine, per court records, matched that of a firearm that police found when executing a search warrant on Vasquez's Chevy Tahoe in October 2018.
When Vasquez was questioned by police days after the disappearance was reported, court records indicate he admitted to knowing Bersane “from the streets” and that he had gone to the Kansas Avenue house on at least three occasions, but denied having killed Bersane.
Vasquez said on the day before Bersane was reported missing, the house was filled with people, but that he had left the house. Vasquez claimed that when he returned to the house, no one was there but that he guessed people had been in his room because he saw what was later determined to be a blood stain on the carpet.
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