ABQ Cartel murder case goes to AMW

Man shot 28 times then set on fire

His body was riddled with bullets and set on fire, but the killers couldn't cover their tracks, and now the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department hopes plastering their mugs on America's Most Wanted will do them in.

The T.V. show is airing a special episode Saturday night, 50 criminals from 50 states, and detectives said the men wanted in New Mexico aren't your ordinary killers.

In 2008, a charred body was found dumped on the west mesa, but that's not all.


“We found 28 shell casings and that seemed to match up with the number of holes they put in him to be quite honest,” Sgt. Mark Kmatz said.

Kmatz, who is with the Sheriff's Department, said 53 year old Danny Baca was working as a drug runner for a mexican drug cartel.

He brought a load of marijuana over the border and up to Albuquerque, but when there was a dispute about his pay for the job, he took off with the load.

“The people came to collect,” Kmatz said. “He didn't have the drugs he didn't have the money.”

Kmatz said Baca was kidnapped from his Albuquerque home in front of his family. Three men then took him to the desert and executed him. It took detectives a year to figure out who the killers were.

“Jaime Veleta and Mario Talavera were two of the key people involved in his kidnapping and murder,” Kmatz said.
The third suspect is still unknown. On the day detectives went to arrest Talavera at this Albuquerque halfway house where he was staying because of drug charges, he took off.

Kmatz believes someone told Talavera that investigators were close to linking him to the murder.

“These are the kind of people that we need to put away,” Kmatz said.

America's Most Wanted will now plaster Talavera's face on national T.V. Kmatz said they hope the publicity will lead detectives to all three killers.

“They have family here they are coming back and forth it's just a matter of catching them at just the right time,” he said. “If these people are capable of committing this type of crime what kind of danger are they to the rest of us?”

America's Most Wanted airs over on 2 KASA-fox at 9 pm.