NM - Tera Chavez, 26, found dead in her Los Lunas home, 22 Oct 2007 - #1

[NCEast]

This is an old article but revealing:

From The EYE On Albuquerque
Apr 10, 2011
Quality v. Quantity; Schultz Zings Albuquerque Citizens Again
Last week a Valencia County Grand Jury indicted Levi Chavez on First Degree Murder charges. Chavez is now under indictment for the murder of his wife. Chavez was a lateral transfer from the Los Lunas Police Department. At the time, Chief Ray Schultz was in a desperate frenzy to recruit police officers. Schultz was looking for quantity and apparently not quality. APD has a history of picking up other police departments’ trash. One of the most notorious is Matthew Griffin, dubbed the name of the Ninja Bank Robber by the FBI.

According to sources behind the badge, the Eye was told that another lateral from the Los Lunas Police Department, under Schultz’ watch, assisted in disposing of Chavez’ truck in an effort to commit fraud against Chavez’ insurance company.

The City of Albuquerque claims that neither they nor their employees did anything wrong but shelled out a big fat check to the Chavez family for $230,000.00. How often does a municipality give $230,000.00 for bogus claims? Of course the $863,000.00 paid out in the Sam Costales case dwarfs the Chavez family’s pay out. Chief Schultz was found guilty of a federal civil rights violation committed against Mr. Costales. Chief Schultz kept his job and was never disciplined for the civil rights violation.

Our Eyes tell us that Levi Chavez’ new wife, Heather Hindi, is actually a former step-daughter of Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg. The Eye wonders why Brandenburg has failed to disclose this information. The Eye is not surprised. Brandenburg has failed to pursue charges against Albuquerque’s Public Safety Director, Darren White, for felony activity after it was reported to her by the New Mexico Attorney General. White has been appointed by Gov. Martinez to sit on the Judicial Standards Commission.

Schultz is the Chief of Police and is responsible for his department and for his choices and selections. In order for Chavez to be hired; it required the ink of Chief Schultz. Schultz needs to learn the difference between quality and quantity. He must be held accountable for his part in the repeated chaos that keeps repeating itself under his watch.

What is awkward, Chief Schultz had the audacity to state in an interview with Channel 13 News (see here), “mistakes were made; wholly and solely by the Valencia County Sheriffs.” After reading this story and hearing his statement, this brought to mind an old saying, “is this not the pot calling the kettle black?”

Bottom line, citizens want one thing; “justice," that goes for anybody who commits any unjust, including Levi Chavez and Ray Schultz.
Posted by The Ghost Has Eyes at 4/10/2011 10:46:00 PM
Labels: Chief Ray Schultz, Darren White, Heather Hindi, Kari Brandenburg, Levi Chavez

 

[calamityjane831]

I just read that Heather H. Chavez is the former stepdaughter of the Albuquerque District Attorney, Kari Brandenburg. Brandenburg's father was also the Albuquerque District Attorney.

Yes crazy huh? I can only wonder what her family thinks. Plus yeah I loved the way today that Ms. Keener pointed out all the money her family has. It just occurred to me I wonder if that who is footing the bill for Serna. A high priced defense attorney like Serna costs a fortune!

 

[calamityjane831]

Here is a video of McKay and the first part of today's closing arguments. I am hoping that Ms. Keener soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZT87C0sLufU

 

[NCEast]

Here is a video of McKay and the first part of today's closing arguments. I am hoping that Ms. Keener soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZT87C0sLufU

I hope you enjoyed your nap. Sometimes these emotional things wear me out more than doing physical labor.
I have been checking YouTube and so far have seen nothing about Keener's closing either. I wrote one of the Twitter people who posted something about being in the media room during the trial asking if they were going to post Keener's closing on YouTube and I mentioned that we were cut off at the end. No response.

 

[calamityjane831]

Here is a YouTube of the first link is part of Mr. McKay's closing but I posted it mainly because it has the beginning of Mr. Serna's closing to be fair and so if you didn't get to watch it with us earlier you too can have a chance to ride the crazy train too. Mr. McKay's complete closing argument is post #3742

Levi Chavez Trial July 12 Closing Arguments Partial I missed part of prosecution. - YouTube

Now for my favorite part. This second YouTube link starts after lunch recess. It is the continuation of Mr. Serna's closing that goes off the rails and Yes Yes Yes Ms. Keener and her IMO home run closing for the state of New Mexico and beloved Tera. Unfortunately the feed does go black at the end too. I hope KOAT or ABQJournal posts footage of the complete closing of Ms. Keener without the blackout.

Levi Chavez Trial. July 12. Closing Arguments. Part 2 - YouTube

 

[thefragile7393]

Wow today really wore me out emotionally and physically I am so tired. I am going to take a nap now because thank goodness it is pizza and salad night.

No joke...I have homework to finish and I promised my son we would go do his schoolwork on top of a short mountain by our house...I just want to sleep and not think. Eat some nommy pizza for us...I miss it

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2

 

[calamityjane831]

I hope you enjoyed your nap. Sometimes these emotional things wear me out more than doing physical labor.
I have been checking YouTube and so far have seen nothing about Keener's closing either. I wrote one of the Twitter people who posted something about being in the media room during the trial asking if they were going to post Keener's closing on YouTube and I mentioned that we were cut off at the end. No response.

Oh thank you I did. Today was alot I was on the edge of my seat with Mr. McKay, I mean I could feel his energy it felt like, my heart was racing. Then Serna my goodness at one point I felt nauseous it seriously made my head spin but then when I watched the way Ms. Keener held the hands of the Cordova family I cried and when I saw Aaron Jones in solidarity with the Cordova's in the front row I was cheering like when San Francisco Giants won the World Series the first time in 2011. I feel like that must have made a statement to the jury especially after what Serna and the APD and VCSO tried to do to that man. Then there was Ms. Keener and that women she is my hero. When she put up that sweet beautiful picture of Tera on the monitor and Serna protested and before that she turned Serna's stupid prop around I knew that something amazing was about to go down and IMO it did. What a finish. The problem now is in my mind I am on jury watch but they are not deliberating.

 

[calamityjane831]

Here is Levi Chavez's testimony it is in three parts.

Levi Chavez Trial. July 10. Levi Chavez Takes Stand. Part 1 - YouTube

Levi Chavez Trial. July 10. Levi Chavez Takes Stand. Part 2 - YouTube

Levi Chavez Trial. July 10. Levi Chavez Takes Stand. Part 3. Volume is LOW. That's how it records - YouTube

 

[calamityjane831]

New article tonight from ABQJournal

Chavez trial goes to jury
By Jeff Proctor / Journal Staff Writer on Fri, Jul 12, 2013

8:25 p.m.

BERNALILLO — Five weeks of testimony and argument drew to a close here on Friday when Assistant District Attorney Anne Keener turned to face former APD officer Levi Chavez, and raising her voice to a near shout, said: “that man killed his wife.”

It is, of course, not for Keener to decide whether Chavez killed his 26-year-old wife, Tera Chavez, whom Keener said was one of many people “played” and “fooled” by Levi Chavez.

Nor is it the province of David Serna, Chavez’s attorney, who argued that at the “crescendo of Tera Chavez’s pain,” she shot herself once in the mouth with her husband’s APD-issued Glock 9 mm pistol in the couple’s Los Lunas home in the early morning hours of Oct. 21, 2007.

Rather, a jury of nine women and three men will decide guilt or innocence for Levi Chavez, who is accused of first-degree murder and evidence tampering. He could could spend the rest of his life in prison if jurors vote unanimously to convict him.

Closing arguments wrapped up shortly after 5 p.m., leaving no time for the jury to begin deliberations. They will come back first thing Monday morning to pore over about 300 pieces of evidence and testimony from more than 40 witnesses — including Levi Chavez himself, who, in a surprise move from the defense, took the stand on Wednesday.

It’s an all-or-nothing proposition for Keener and her co-counsel, Senior Trial Attorney Bryan McKay.

There are no lesser-included charges, such as second-degree murder or manslaughter, on the verdict form the jury will complete. And it’s unlikely the jury would convict Chavez of staging Tera’s death scene if jurors don’t believe he killed her.

The prosecution and defense lawyers, naturally, argued bitterly in their closings over what the evidence and testimony show.

Keener and McKay said the case was easy to distinguish as a murder and that Levi killed Tera to shut her up about an insurance scam he had pulled involving the couple’s truck, because he felt “shamed” over cheating on Tera for years and to keep his secrets from coming out should the couple follow through with a possible divorce.

“We’ve learned that the defendant had a lot of secrets,” Keener said.

Beyond reasonable doubt

For his part, Serna argued there essentially is no evidence of Levi’s guilt — even after seven calendar years and investigations by multiple law enforcement agencies and a lawyer hired by Tera’s family for a civil wrongful death suit “targeted” his client for conviction.

“A criminal case,” Serna said after showing the jury a large doubt-measurement chart, “is about whether the state can prove what it has alleged beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Serna spent more than 15 minutes describing for the jury the high burden of “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

He argued prosecutors hadn’t even come close and told jurors that Chavez was unfairly “targeted” as a suspect after then-Valencia County Sheriff’s detective Aaron Jones met with Tera’s father, Joseph Cordova.

He promised to tell the jury about the “combustion that occurred when those two got together and how it rolled from there.”

He directed much of his ire toward Jones.

Serna said Jones had poisoned many of the witnesses in the case, including Tera’s parents, Joseph and Theresa Cordova, against Levi by using underhanded interviewing techniques as part of a grand conspiracy to make a name for himself.

“Aaron Jones is a liar,” he said during of one of his lengthy tirades against the former detective.

Not long after that, Jones, who testified near the beginning of the trial, walked into the courtroom. Some of the jurors took notice of his presence.

Using testimony from the expert witnesses he put on the stand, Serna poked at the state’s physical evidence, including the controversial “unseated” magazine that held bullets for the Glock that killed Tera.

Hours of testimony were devoted to whether the magazine was fully secured into the butt of the gun when Jones discovered it. If his testimony is accurate — that the magazine was disengaged and there was a new bullet in the gun’s chamber — it would have been nearly, if not completely, impossible for Tera to have shot herself.

But Jones didn’t offer his story about the magazine until two years after Tera’s death, Serna argued.

At one point, he asked the jury: “Are you starting to feel some reasonable doubt here?” He repeated similar phrases twice more.

To support his theory that Tera was suicidal, he read a number of passages from Tera’s diaries in which she wrote about wanting to “disappear” and “fall off the face of the earth.”

Several loud claps of thunder signaling a brief storm shook the courtroom near the end of Serna’s closing argument, right around the time he began to describe what he believed was Tera’s final, desperately suicidal day alive.

Members of Levi Chavez’s family were confident after Serna’s argument. They laughed, smiled and exchanged what seemed like celebratory hugs after the jury left the courtroom for a brief recess.

‘Cold, cold man’

Offering the rebuttal to Serna’s argument, Keener began by projecting a photograph of Tera on the courtroom’s computer screens. She painted Tera as a woman with plans, friends, a supportive family and a career.

As for Levi Chavez, Keener described him as a “cold, cold man.”

“You can hear all about how he’s not very sophisticated,” Keener said of Levi Chavez, playing off Serna’s portrait of the former cop as someone who would be incapable of planning and carrying out a complex murder. “But this is a man who can keep three or four women in the air at the same time.”

A handful of women with whom Levi was having extramarital affairs took the stand during the trial, some of them APD officers.

Earlier Friday, McKay told jurors during his closing argument this morning that Levi Chavez was “shamed” over numerous extramarital affairs and that he needed to shut his wife up about an insurance fraud she believed he had committed.

That’s why, on Oct. 21, 2007, sometime after midnight, he “shoves the gun into the back of her mouth and pulls the trigger,” McKay said while standing in front of the jury box and, in as animated a fashion as he’s demonstrated since Chavez’s murder trial began on June 10, showed the jury with a model pistol how he said Tera Chavez died.

Before it was actually Serna’s turn to make his case, he made his voice heard in the courtroom.

McKay was summarizing earlier testimony from an FBI forensic cellphone examiner who reviewed cellphones that belonged to Levi and Tera. He was pointing out that numerous texts sent to Levi’s phone from Tera’s were recovered by the examiner, but that there weren’t any texts in Tera’s phone.

“Can we approach the bench?” Serna asked Eichwald, then turned to McKay and continued: “I’m sorry to interrupt your presentation — I really didn’t want to have to do this.”

The objection prompted visible reactions from jurors and, for the first time during the trial, conversations among them taking place.

The short bench conference did not appear to alter McKay’s course.

He began his closing argument by describing for the first time the sequence of events that, according to the prosecution, led to Tera’s death:

After getting off work at midnight following a swing shift for APD, Levi Chavez turned off his cellphone and drove to the couple’s home near Los Lunas.

When he arrived, he looked into a window to make “sure things were dark.” They were, so he used his key to unlock the front door and went inside.

Carrying his APD-issued Glock, Chavez went into the bedroom and probably found Tera asleep, McKay said. She had been awake most of the past 36 hours and had Benadryl and high levels of Tylenol PM in her system.

Tera had called in sick to work that day and would likely have been sleeping with her mouth open, he said.

Levi crept up to the bed, McKay said. “Then he slammed that gun in her mouth and pulls the trigger,” he shouted.
“Hopped up and in an adrenaline state,” Chavez accidentally pressed the button on the gun that releases its magazine and placed the gun, upside down, beside his wife’s dead body.

Then Chavez got in the shower — as evidenced by the damp towel Jones found at the scene nearly 20 hours later, McKay said.

Chavez then sent himself a text from Tera’s phone to make it appear like she was contemplating suicide, he said.

Finally, Levi put his APD uniform back on and drove to the Albuquerque home of Debra Romero, a fellow APD officer with whom he was having an affair.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there is no such thing as the perfect murder,” McKay said after going through testimony and evidence he said proved Levi guilty. “Even that thin blue line cracks, and people start to realize that something’s wrong. Common sense tells you … The defendant killed Tera Chavez.”

http://www.abqjournal.com/main/220354/news/does-dna-show-tera-handled-gun.html

 

[calamityjane831]

During the his closing today Mr. Serna made it out to be that the states case just kept changing and changing like any way the wind blows. Well my gosh the state had a tough case to begin with and then more blows to it later. This KOAT boadcast confirms it yet again. IMO it is amazing they had anything to work with.

Stolen Truck Not Mentioned In Chavez Trial - YouTube

 

[DeDee]

Aaron Jones is on the front row behind the prosc.

Coming into this trial bit late; however, was able to watch LC's testimony live. It was then that I had to catch up on the case research. Thanks to all who posted on the wonderful threads for they made the lengthy chore easy.
LC is a smooth talking snake in the grass who, imho, premeditated the murder of his lovely 26yo wife, Tera. LC performed innocently on his world stage so it was that I held my breath until Ms. Keener began succinctly stacking the layers of evidence against LC.
Ms. Keener answered most all of my questions, especially when she explained about the issue with the Glock's magazine not being discovered for 2 years. I often wondered why the gun was shoved so far into her mouth.
My heart leapt for joy when seeing Aaron Jones enter the courtroom and tears stung as he sat with Tera's family. It was a very good sign. The jury noticed it, too.
Were both Tera and LC 16yo when they married and 26yo when she was murdered? As it is so many times, the wife is murdered when she is trying to get away.
All my opinion...

 

[NCEast]

So the article answered my question--no lesser charges for the jury to consider. It's all or nothing.

 

[ChubbyCheeks]

After he was indicted on a murder charge last month in his wife's 2007 death, Levi Chavez II was fired from APD.
In motions filed earlier this year, the former lawyers for Levi Chavez II asked a judge to "exclude any evidence and testimony pertaining to the 'Chavez crime family' and suicides among Robert Chavez's (friends) in its entirety at trial because they are immaterial, unduly prejudicial and would mislead, confuse and inflame the jury.
"The jury may very well conclude that the 'apple does not fall far from the tree' and find against Levi Chavez because of the alleged misdeeds of his relatives."

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/metro/1506499606newsmetro05-15-11.htm

O.M.G!!!! Chavez crime family indeed! Seems obvious where LC got the idea how to murder his wife, straight from his uncle Robert Chavez who got away with murder twice, it seems.
I do not believe the Chavez men have all just "coincidentally" been accused, fired, and now standing trial, for any other reason than they really are thieves and murderers.

 

[calamityjane831]

O.M.G!!!! Chavez crime family indeed! Seems obvious where LC got the idea how to murder his wife, straight from his uncle Robert Chavez who got away with murder twice, it seems.
I do not believe the Chavez men have all just "coincidentally" been accused, fired, and now standing trial, for any other reason than they really are thieves and murderers.

I know it is unreal and disgusting. I believed LC was guilty as sin from the beginning but when I read that article yesterday my jaw dropped. Surreal, I mean people can have things in their family that are blemishes bad apples but on this level no way just coincidences. IMO

 

[calamityjane831]

I have gone back and listened to Ms. Keener's closing a few times and each time I realize more and more how brilliant it is. I thought so much last night how the Cordova family must be feeling. I wonder how the jury is feeling. I am hoping they are all safe and sound this weekend eating well and getting rest before deliberations. I am not sure how I feel about the closing arguments ending on Friday at 5 pm... I guess it is just par for the course for this case from the very beginning back in 2007. I say this because I wish that the jury was debriefing and processing it all together right away. The jury has had to turn their minds off at the end of each day and each weekend yes but IMO this is different because the presentations are done and the brain begins to process as it all sinks in and I just wished for at least of few hours the jury could have spent with each other after closing... but they couldn't so it is what it is and this is minor in the big picture. I loved how Ms. Keener painted the picture of Heather Hindi and the relationship how it all began and the money. Getting that little piece in about the homes and vacations not long after Tera had died, wow. The Cordova family suffering so much pain after this man stole their daughters life and now he is gallivanting all over the place with a new woman and their grandchildren without a care in the world. LC has gotten so many breaks, in the old news clips reporting about the murder charge being brought against him and even people being interviewed in the court system saying how odd it was that LC got to self surrender and then getting out on bond. I am just chomping at the bit waiting for his easy street to come to an end.

 

[ChubbyCheeks]

I missed the prosecutor cross of LC....can anyone give me a summary? TIA!

 

[calamityjane831]

Yippee!!! ABQ Journal just posted a new article today with great YouTube videos of full closing so we can see the last few minutes of Keener's closing so I am going to post those three videos here and take the other ones I posted because this is much better

McKay Prosecution Closing
Levi Chavez Murder Trial - Prosecution Closing Arguments - YouTube

Serna Defense Closing
Levi Chavez Murder Trial - Defense Closing Arguments - YouTube

Keener Rebuttal IN FULL (bc we lost our feed at the end while watching on Friday)
Levi Chavez Murder Trial - Prosecution Rebuttal - YouTube

 

[calamityjane831]

I missed the prosecutor cross of LC....can anyone give me a summary? TIA!

I don't really know how to sum it up but it is posted on a YouTube video thread page 150 post #3747 video #3. I don't know what kind of time you have but to put the states cross in context IMOO it is great to watch Serna spoon feed him first as one wonderful poster said it best because the contrast of the cross is really something to see. LC is Jekyll and Hyde.

 

[calamityjane831]

This is the new article from one of my new favorite reporters Jeff Proctor of the ABQJournal it is generally a summation of articles from yesterday but it is a good summary also it has the the entire closing videos.

http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2207...e-start-to-realize-that-somethings-wrong.html

Jury to decide Chavez’s fate
By Jeff Proctor / Journal Staff Writer on Sat, Jul 13, 2013

BERNALILLO – Five weeks of testimony and argument drew to a close here on Friday when Assistant District Attorney Anne Keener turned to face former APD officer Levi Chavez and, raising her voice to a near shout, said: “That man, Levi Chavez, murdered his wife.”

It is, of course, not for Keener to decide whether Chavez killed his 26-year-old wife, Tera Chavez, who Keener said was one of many people “played” and “fooled” by Levi Chavez.

Nor is it the province of David Serna, Chavez’s attorney, who argued that at the “crescendo of Tera Chavez’s pain,” she shot herself once in the mouth with her husband’s APD-issued Glock 9 mm pistol in the couple’s Los Lunas home in the early morning hours of Oct. 21, 2007.

Rather, a jury of nine women and three men will decide guilt or innocence for Levi Chavez, who is accused of first-degree murder and evidence tampering. He could spend the rest of his life in prison if jurors vote unanimously to convict him.


<modsnip>

 

[NCEast]

After watching Keener's final hour of the prosecution's closing, all I can say is that I wish she had been 1st chair all the way through this trial. Thank you CJ for putting it on here in it's completion--even though we didn't miss but a couple of minutes yesterday I was dying to hear how she wrapped it up. She was terrific.