What a year: Looking back at top stories in New Mexico in 2023

Dec. 31—The good news is that this year New Mexico was not savaged by the vicious wildfires that made the state a living hell for many of its residents in 2022.

The bad news is there's not much else good news.

Gun violence continues to plague our state, ranging from drive-by shootings allegedly orchestrated by a defeated and disgruntled political candidate to a shooting death rooted in an argument over seats in a movie theater.

It got to the point where the governor enacted a public health order prohibiting the carrying of guns in public places in Bernalillo County, but that was quickly hamstrung by court action.

View the Journal's 2023 top photo gallery and a list of notable deaths in 2023 at the end of this article.

There were no significant fires this summer, but there was plenty of heat. Albuquerque reached or topped 100 degrees 17 times, and a monsoon season that failed to materialize resulted in large swaths of the Rio Grande drying up in Albuquerque and other places along its course.

Two past governors and a former Archbishop of Santa Fe died during the year, as did several of the state's most prominent writers.

Looking for silver linings? A movie about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in developing and testing the atomic bomb in New Mexico fostered interest in the state and focused attention on the plight of people exposed to radiation during nuclear testing in New Mexico and other parts of the country.

And Asha, a Mexican gray wolf with a mind of her own, twice violated government-imposed boundaries to travel from Arizona to northern New Mexico, inspiring all of us who admire independent spirits and value freedom.

New Mexico's Top Stories

Politics go ballistic

The political divide that infects our country exploded into gunfire in New Mexico in a highly publicized case that spanned late 2022 and early 2023.

Solomon Peña, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for a New Mexico House seat, was arrested on Jan. 16 on charges that he hired a father and son and others to shoot up the homes of local Democratic politicians between Dec. 4, 2022, and Jan. 3 of this year.

Politicians whose homes were targeted included Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa, state Rep. Javier Martínez, Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie O'Malley and state Sen. Linda Lopez.

Peña, who lost his race in a heavily Democratic district by more than 50 percentage points, allegedly commissioned the drive-by shootings in response to what he believed to be a rigged election.

Besides Peña, Demetrio Trujillo and Jose Trujillo were also arrested in the case, and all three are facing federal charges that include conspiracy, interference with federally protected activities and using a firearm in relation to a crime of violence.

Gun violence, governor's ban

Albuquerque did not set a record for homicides this year, as it did in 2022, when it recorded 121 people killed.

But there was still plenty of gun violence to go around, not only here in the city but around the state.

In response to the many shootings, which in some cases resulted in the deaths of children, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham took the extraordinary action of enacting a public health order effective Sept. 8 that banned the carrying of firearms in any public place in Bernalillo County for 30 days.

The year's shooting incidents included:

May 15: An 18-year-old man walked along North Dustin Avenue in Farmington, indiscriminately firing several weapons and killing three people, all women older than 70, and wounding six others, including two police officers, before he was shot and killed by police.

May 27: A shootout between the Bandidos and the Waterdogs — rival bikers gangs — resulted in three people dead and three people arrested during Red River's annual Memorial Day Motorcycle Rally.

June 25: A dispute over seats at Albuquerque's Century Rio movie theaters led to the arrest of a 19-year-old man in the shooting death of a 52-year-old man.

Aug. 13: A drive-by shooting in a Southwest Albuquerque trailer park killed a 5-year-old girl who was sleeping in a mobile home. Four teenage boys and a teenage girl were arrested on open counts of murder and other charges.

Sept. 6: A 21-year-old man seeking to settle an old feud fired 14 shots into a white pickup leaving an Albuquerque Isotopes baseball game. It turns out it was the wrong pickup truck, but the mistake was deadly. An 11-year-old boy was killed and a female occupant of the truck critically injured. The shooter and two other men in their 20s were charged with an open count of murder, attempted murder, shooting from a vehicle, conspiracy and child abuse.

Legal response to the governor's gun ban, charging her with violating constitutional rights to bear arms, was immediate, and U.S. District Judge David Urias issued a ruling temporarily blocking the part of the governor's order prohibiting the possession of concealed or open-carry firearms in public places.

On Sept. 15, the governor said she was curtailing her order by banning firearms only in public parks and playgrounds.

Federal courts in New Mexico have ruled differently on the legality of banning guns in parks. But the governor's order, which has been extended, still bans guns on playgrounds.

Abortion rights

In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that guaranteed women the right to obtain abortions.

But in New Mexico, House Bill 7, which was signed into law by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in March and went into effect on June 16, prohibits state jurisdictions from denying, restricting, or interfering with a person's ability to access or provide reproductive health care. In other words, it prevents government bodies within the state from passing ordinances that deny the right to seek or provide abortions.

Abortion opponents in New Mexico have vowed to challenge House Bill 7 in court, all the way up to the Supreme Court if need be.

Long, hot summer

Monsoon rains were for the most part a no-show in Albuquerque this summer, making July the city's driest July since the late 1800s. And it was plenty hot, too. Albuquerque posted 17 days of 100-degree or higher temperatures, 15 in July and two in August. The year's hottest day was July 17, when the temperature climbed to 104 degrees.

Seventeen days of 100-degree-or-higher temperatures ranks third for such days in Albuquerque in a single year. Albuquerque's record in that category is 28 days in 1980, followed by 18 days in 1979.

Things did not look so bad back in the spring when near-record and record snowpacks delivered a strong runoff. But the runoff was done in early July, and with no monsoon to take up the slack things got tough in August for farmers who depend on Rio Grande water for irrigating crops.

New Mexico on film

Released in July, "Oppenheimer,' a movie about J. Robert Oppenheimer (portrayed by Cillian Murphy), the physicist in charge of the development of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos and its testing at what is now the White Sands Missile Range, drew widespread attention to New Mexico and the effects of nuclear testing.

The movie, much of which was filmed at a recreation of 1940s-era Los Alamos on top of a plateau at Ghost Ranch, grossed $995 million worldwide, third highest in 2023, garnered eight nominations for Golden Globe Awards and was named one of the Top 10 films of the year by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute.

"Oppenheimer" is credited with encouraging the U.S. Congress to revise the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (1990), which provided compensation programs for people affected by radiation and nuclear testing during the Cold War.

Plastics storage fire

A huge plume of dark black smoke apparent to anyone outdoors billowed over Albuquerque on Sunday afternoon, Aug. 6.

The source was a fire at United Poly Systems, a plastics storage facility in the 5300 block of Hawking SE.

Firefighters were able to contain the fire pretty quickly, but it burned fiercely hot into the night.

Although employees were at the facility when the fire started, no injuries were reported. Health alerts, however, were issued due to hazardous air pollutants emitted by the burning plastic.

Oñate strikes again

A 23-year-old man was charged with attempted first-degree murder in September after shooting a Native American activist during a rally in Española celebrating a decision to postpone the relocation there of a statue of controversial conquistador Juan de Oñate.

Oñate is infamous for a 1599 massacre of Acoma Indians.

Ryan David Martinez, wearing a Make America Great Again cap, scuffled with people opposed to the statue's relocation and then pulled a gun and shot activist Jacob Johns in the abdomen.

It was the second time an Oñate statue sparked gun violence in New Mexico.

In June 2020, the protest of an Oñate statue near the Albuquerque Museum also resulted in a non-fatal shooting.

Taos compound convictions

Four people are facing life sentences after being convicted in October of charges related to the kidnapping and death of a 3-year-old boy in December 2017 and/or terrorism-related charges.

National attention was focused on New Mexico in August 2018 when FBI agents and Taos County Sheriff's deputies raided a squalid compound near the Colorado border looking for the 3-year-old, Abdul Ghani Wahhaj, who had been reported missing in December 2017 by his mother in Georgia. The child's decomposed remains were found in a tunnel at the compound.

Following a three-week-long trial in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, two women — Hujrah Wahhaj, 42, and her sister, Subhanah Wahhaj, 30, and Subhanah's husband, Lucas Morton, 45 — were convicted on charges of kidnapping resulting in death and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. Morton and his brother-in-law, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 45, the dead boy's father, were convicted of three terrorism-related charges, including conspiracy to murder an officer or employee of the United States.

Authorities found five adults and 11 malnourished children at the compound, as well as 11 firearms and 500 to 600 rounds of ammunition. Prosecutors alleged that the 3-year-old boy, who had serious developmental disabilities, died after being subjected to rigorous exorcism rituals.

Freak accident kills brothers

Many people in Moriarty and Albuquerque's East Mountain community were stunned and saddened when brothers Brad and Chad Gunter were killed on Nov. 9 when a semitrailer truck crashed into their blacksmith shop in Moriarty.

The truck went off Interstate 40 and lumbered across a field before slamming into the brothers' building.

Brad, 42, and Chad, 47, were also owners of Ribs BBQ, a popular restaurant in Cedar Crest. More than 700 people attended services for the brothers at Legacy Church's East Mountain campus.

No charges have been filed against the truck driver, who, according to the Torrance County Sheriff's Office, did not have drugs or alcohol in his system at the time of the accident.

Call of the wild

Asha, a Mexican gray wolf with a hobo's heart, captured the imagination of wildlife enthusiasts when for the second time within the year she recently jumped boundaries the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers appropriate for her kind and headed for northern New Mexico. She did the same thing earlier in the year, both times traveling hundreds of miles from the mountains of Arizona.

Since she wears a radio collar, Asha is easy to trace and was found to be roaming between the Valles Caldera National Preserve and the San Pedro Mountains. Earlier this month, a helicopter crew working with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish shot her with a tranquilizer dart. Plans were to take her to the Sevilleta Wolf Management Facility near Socorro for mating purposes.

But that's exactly what happened when she was found in the northern part of the state in January, following her first expedition. The Sevilleta matchup didn't work out then, so she was released back into the wild in Arizona, only to take to the road again. So, stay tuned for the further adventures of Asha.

Asha was not the only animal drawn to New Mexico from its normal haunts this year. In September, a moose, an animal usually found in northern states from Maine to Washington and from Canada into Alaska, sauntered into Downtown Santa Fe. Maybe it was on the way to Albuquerque for the State Fair. We'll never know. The moose, estimated to weigh 900 pounds and determined to be in good health, was tranquilized with a dart and relocated farther north in the state.

Nobody knows how the tiger cub, discovered by police inside a mobile home in January during a shooting investigation, got to Albuquerque. He was about 4 months old and weighed 22 pounds when found. Police turned over the tiger, dubbed Duke, to the ABQ BioPark Zoo. He was cared for at the zoo until February, when he was taken to The Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keenesburg, Colorado, northeast of Denver.

Notable deaths

Two past governors and a former Archbishop of Santa Fe were among those who died in 2023.

Bill Richardson, a larger-than-life personality who was elected New Mexico's 30th governor and served two terms from 2003 to 2011, died on Sept. 1 at his summer home in Massachusetts. He was 75.

As governor, he abolished the death penalty in the state, raised the minimum wage for teachers, supported renewable energy and legalized medical marijuana.

Richardson also served as a U.S. congressman representing New Mexico for a dozen years, as ambassador to the United Nations and as U.S. Energy Secretary. He was a candidate for the U.S. presidency in 2007.

His stage reached beyond New Mexico and this country and encompassed roles as a negotiator for the release of prisoners held in other parts of the world and as a diplomat seeking to ease nuclear tensions with North Korea.

Jerry Apodaca, New Mexico's first Hispanic governor in the modern age, died in Santa Fe on April 26 at the age of 88. He was governor from 1975 to 1979 and then served as chair of President Jimmy Carter's council on physical fitness. A one-time high school teacher, Apodaca may be best remembered as an ardent champion for improving New Mexico schools. His name is on the Santa Fe building that houses the Public Education Department.

Michael Sheehan, who served as Archbishop of Santa Fe from September 1993 until his retirement in June 2015, died on June 3 at age 83. He had previously been a bishop in Lubbock, Texas, and, during his tenure as Archbishop of Santa Fe, filled the role of apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Phoenix from June to December 2003.

Writer Cormac McCarthy, whose novels included "Blood Meridian," "All the Pretty Horses," "No Country for Old Men" and "The Road," which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, died at his Santa Fe home on June 13 at age 89. Considered by many to be among this country's top authors, McCarthy was known for his graphic depiction of violence and a unique writing style that made scant use of punctuation and attribution.

Historian Marc Simmons, who wrote, edited or contributed to more than 40 books about New Mexico and the Southwest, including "Kit Carson & His Three Wives" and "Albuquerque: A Narrative History," died Sept. 14 in Albuquerque at age 86.

And John Nichols, author of fiction and nonfiction, most notably the novel "The Milagro Beanfield War," which was made into a 1988 movie produced and directed by Robert Redford, died at his Taos home in November. He was 83.