Santa Fe man accused in fourth stabbing in four years
Apr. 11—A Santa Fe man who goes by the name "Cozy" has been accused of his fourth stabbing in four years.
Santa Fe police charged Chester "Cozy" Gutierrez with attempted murder in a stabbing last month at a Cerrillos Road bus stop near the Denny's restaurant, according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court.
Police wrote in an arrest warrant affidavit the stabbing occurred March 25 during a fight among several people at the bus stop.
Three other people who witnessed the fight walked southbound on Cerrillos Road after the stabbing, police wrote, and the victim walked northbound toward Denny's, where he was found "with blood on his head and neck and moaning in pain."
Police identified Gutierrez after reviewing surveillance video from several nearby businesses, the affidavit says. An investigator recognized the suspect as "Cozy" from prior encounters with him on the streets, he wrote in the affidavit.
The stabbing victim, a 39-year-old man from Laguna Pueblo, was taken to the intensive care unit of Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center with internal bleeding on the night of the incident, and he was unable to speak for weeks afterward, police wrote.
Police questioned the victim April 4 even though he still could not speak, the affidavit says. A detective wrote the victim answered questions by blinking his eyes and indicated he knew who stabbed him.
On Wednesday, the victim was interviewed again. He told officers he and several others were drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana at the bus stop the night of the incident and that he did not know why he was attacked, the detective wrote. He "positively identified" Gutierrez as the man who stabbed him.
Gutierrez was arrested and booked into the Santa Fe County jail Wednesday evening, according to an online jail log, and is being held without bond. An initial court appearance was scheduled for Thursday; however, Magistrate Judge John Rysanek granted a 24-hour continuance requested by prosecutors so they could decide whether to ask for pretrial detention, online court records show.
Gutierrez appears to have lived in various places in Santa Fe and Española for several years and has a tattoo of his street name, "Cozy," on his abdomen, police have written. Court records indicate he has shown a pattern in recent years of violent attacks on others.
In 2021, Gutierrez pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, after another man told police Gutierrez had "sucker punched" him and then stabbed him in the chest with a screwdriver near Railyard Park. The next year, Gutierrez pleaded guilty to another aggravated battery charge after stabbing a woman near a Walgreen's store on Cerrillos Road.
In 2022, again, Gutierrez was accused by police of stabbing another man outside Home Depot. An aggravated battery charge in the 2022 incident was dismissed by prosecutors, who wrote in a dismissal notice the victim could not be located to testify.
