Man charged in cop's death faces death

By Jim Maniaci
Cibola County Bureau

BERNALILLO — The prosecution won three critical decisions with one more dismissal attempt to be decided next month from a 13th Judicial District Court judge last week in a high-profile vehicle homicide case which began Aug. 1, 2001, with a shoplifting in Grants and ended with the death of a popular police officer.

Judge Luis P. McDonald did grant the defense motion in favor of Zacariah Dewitt Craig, now 24, to change the location of the legal proceedings to the Sandoval County seat from the Cibola County seat where state policeman Lloyd Aragon had been a popular city police officer.

McDonald favored 13th Judicial District chief attorney Lemuel Martinez by denying defense motions to toss out the death penalty based on freedom of religion and mental illness claims, and to dismiss theft charges.

While Martinez asserted to The Independent that he will continue to seek the death penalty, the judge also set Oct. 11 and 12 to hear arguments about whether the circumstances of the case warrant seeking the death penalty for Craig. This is known as an Ogden hearing.

Craig was identified as the 19-year-old driver of a 1995 Toyota truck when the fatal incident occurred in the median of Interstate 40 near Mile Post 126. That is the junction with N.M. Route 6 (the Las Lunas cut-off), about 42 miles from the scene of the theft which began the fatal incident.

Aragon, a 1982 Grants High School graduate, and New Mexico State Police Officer William Cunningham were headed to Albuquerque around 7 a.m. that morning for a federal court drug case when they heard the all-point bulletin that Grants Police Department Sgt. Mike Trujillo was chasing the fleeing vehicle eastbound on I-40. The sergeant had pursued the vehicle west along Grants' main street. Officers had stopped the white pickup and had the older brother, Aron Craig, then 21, outside for questioning when the younger brother jumped in and took off headed back towards the store.

Aragon, 37, and Cunningham, in plain clothes, decided to stop and lay down a stop stick. A stop stick is about three feet long with sharp spikes pointing up through a plastic sleeve and is attached to a cord for officers to pull it into position. They were standing in the middle of the untraveled portion of the divided highway when the truck veered into Aragon, according to then Chief Fred Radosevich.

The chief claimed Craig could easily have steered around the stick and didn't have to go into the median. Although the alleged theft occurred around 7 a.m., the chase police reported speeds in excess of 100 mph in a 75 mph zone didn't reach its conclusion until about a half-hour later when Craig crashed into a guardrail after hitting Aragon, who died instantly, and then traveling across the westbound lanes. He still tried to run, but two state officers and Trujillo tackled him. State Police Major David Osuna said Craig, who is about 5-ft., 7-in. tall, still tried to resist arrest.

The truck also had been stolen in Albuquerque, according to the city dispatcher's computer check.

The two young men allegedly stole 40 boxes of Actafed, worth more than $600. Ingredients in the over-the-counter drug often are used in the manufacture of methamphetamine. An alert employee at a store at Exit 85 on I-40 wrote down the truck's license plate and employees called the city dispatcher.

On Aug. 8, 2001, the judicial district's grand jury for Cibloa County charged Craig, then 19, with 30 different crimes.

One charge alone, an open count of capital murder, could bring the death penalty. And it was up to Martinez to decide if he would seek life-in-prison (a 30-year term) or death. Other charges included 20 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, each a 4th-degree felony, and three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer, each a 3rd-degree felony.

Adding the longest penalties allowed by state law, Craig faced up to 95 years behind bars if convicted on all counts and given the maximum sentences. He also faced up to $150,000 in fines.

On Aug. 23, 2001, the Albuquerque brothers were arraigned in Grants, with Judge McDonald taking over from Judge Camille Martinez-Olguin.

In November 2002, the defendant was found to be incompetent to stand trial, so the judge sent him to Las Vegas for the rest of his life or until doctors could bring him to the competent state. In May 2003, McDonald ruled that while Craig was still incompetent, there was clear and convincing evidence to convict him of 1st-degree murder.

Last June Craig was found to be competent after being treated for thyroid problems as well as his mental state, which had been under treatment for three years at the state mental hospital in Las Vegas.

Aragon had been a state officer for eight years and a city cop for seven years. He left a widow, Monica, a son, Lloyd Jr., now 16, and a daughter Adriana, now 9.

— To contact reporter Jim Maniaci, telephone (505) 285-6184 or (505) 870-7775 (cellular).