Left: The crime scene (KOB). Right: Elizabeth Ortiz-Chavez (Metropolitan Detention Center).
A mother from New Mexico allowed her 16-year-old son to remain in jail for a murder she committed, only for the truth to be revealed by her other son. Elizabeth Ortiz-Chavez, aged 49, has now been sentenced to prison for her actions.
In the case from March 2022, Ortiz-Chavez pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for shooting and killing 16-year-old Josue Ruiz behind Lindy’s Diner in downtown Albuquerque. At first, her son Angelo Baldonado, who was also 16 at the time, was the one facing charges as an adult for the murder.
It is reported that Ortiz-Chavez planned a fight between Ruiz and her son, and then proceeded to shoot the victim in an alleyway near Fifth Street and Central Avenue. Before the shooting took place, Angelo Baldonado’s pregnant sister, who was dating Ruiz, had informed the family that Ruiz had physically assaulted her.
Jail calls between Baldonado and his mother — included in a probable cause arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime — show she was on the verge of coming forward with the truth, but Baldonado insisted that she not for the sake of the family. Prosecutors say she wanted to blame her son because he was a minor and would receive a lesser sentence.
But then her other son, Baldonado’s brother, blew the case open in March 2023. In a conversation on Facebook with a woman, he said what really happened.
“She advised me that during their conversations (Baldonado’s brother) did advise her that Angelo and his mother, Elizabeth Ortiz-Chavez, had gone to fight Josue and that Josue tried to pull a gun on them and that he got shot before he could take out his gun, but that detectives had charged his brother with the murder,” said the investigating detective’s complaint. “Gilbert also disclosed that the ‘crazy part about it’ was that his brother is not ‘telling’ on his mom.”
The brother expressed frustration that their mother would allow him to take the fall.
“I have an older brother locked up because of her,” he told the woman. “… I hate her for what she did. He deserves to be home with his daughter. She’ll never know him at all because she’s a selfish b—–.”
He added: “She’s the worst of the worst.”
The woman came forward to police and relayed the conversation. Cops arrested Ortiz-Chavez for murder. Baldonado did not come off unscathed: Since he participated in and organized the deadly fight, he was sentenced to four years in prison for assault and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
Ortiz-Chavez faces up to 18 years behind bars when she’s sentenced.
