A body has been found in the home of an Aztec man who was arrested by the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office for shooting at a New Mexico State Police officer.
Fernando Leon Silva, 40, was arrested Aug. 20, a day after he shot at a New Mexico State Police officer. When deputies went to his home, they found the “decomposing” body of Carlos Silva with a gunshot wound to the head.
“We’re investigating the decedent found in the house,” San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari said, adding an autopsy was completed on Carlos Silva, who was Fernando Silva’s uncle.
Deputies also found additional rifles, ammunition and suspected bomb making materials, but “there wasn’t any bomb,” Ferrari said.
Silva was arraigned on Sept. 16 on charges of attempted murder in the second-degree, shooting at or from a motor vehicle, aggravated assault upon a peace officer, resisting, evading or obstructing an officer and aggravated fleeing a law enforcement officer. He pleaded not guilty.
These charges are in connection to the Aug. 19 incident in which Silva allegedly fired more than 50 rounds of ammunition with an AR-15-style rifle at New Mexico State Police officer Andrew Blea, who attempted to stop Silva for driving at a high rate of speed in the area of Pinon Hills Boulevard and West 30th Street, according to the arrest affidavit.
Silva, who had no violent criminal record before this incident, did not hit Blea, but bullets did strike the officer’s vehicle, causing the patrol unit to break down and stranding the officer at the location, the affidavit states.
Silva fled the scene heading north. San Juan County Sheriff’s Deputy Shelby Hines located Silva driving his Chrysler northbound on La Plata Highway, near mile marker 4. Hines stated in the affidavit that the car was traveling at “excess speeds of over 120 miles per hour,” the deputy was unable to maintain sight of the vehicle after mile marker 8.
When Silva was arrested, the San Juan County District Attorney’s Office filed a motion to hold him in the San Juan County Detention until his trial, and 11th Judicial District Judge Curtis Gurley granted that motion.
In the order, Gurley cited the finding of the “decomposing” body in the house, as well as the additional rifles in the home and in Silva’s vehicle.
Gurley also wrote that Silva reportedly “admitted the initial action of the shooting at the NMSP officer and justifying that this reckless and violent act was necessary to protect his identification as an undercover employee for the local Region II Narcotics Task Force.”
Ferrari said Silva “has never been an informant for Region 2.”
During the arraignment, Gurley asked when the case would be ready for trial and public defender Matthew Cockman said “the first of the year would be the earliest.”
Gurley set a status hearing in the case for 9 a.m. Nov. 18 in his courtroom in Aztec.
