By: ABQRAW staff
Posted: 7/16/2023 @ 10:30PM
Albuquerque, NM – According to APD they have now charged John Paul Ballejos for the 2022 double murder of his uncle and his uncle’s wife in their Barelas home.
Ballejos was already in jail on charges for a second, double murder that occurred in September 2022. Ballejos was charged last year for the shooting deaths of Daniel Humprey and Humprhey’s aunt, Sonia Tenorio.
Earlier that year, on May 8, 2022, police responded to a shooting at 910 8th St., N.W. They discovered Hesiquio Cordova and Virginia Serna, who died as a result of gunshot wounds.
Families members had suspected that Ballejos may have killed the couple because Ballejos had been violent with his uncle in the past, and Serna filed several restraining orders against Ballejos. She had also bought a firearm for protection which was located near her following her death. Ballejos lived on-and-off at the home on 8th Street.
Following the murders in September, detectives recovered the handgun Ballejos used in that shooting, as well as bullet casings. They compared the casings to the casings found after the murders in May, but the results were inconclusive.
However after further investigation, the gun traced back to a purchase made by Hesiquio Cordova Sr., who also lives at the 8th Street address, back in 2021. Detectives researched an unrelated Shotspotter activation from Dec. 31, 2021 at the home on 59th Street, which was also the scene of the second, double murder in 2022. Ballejos was living at an apartment at that location when he was accused of those murders.
Detectives requested new comparisons of bullet casings from both murder scenes. The analysis concluded the casings from both scenes came from the same Taurus 9mm caliber handgun. With all of this new information, detectives were able to obtain an arrest warrant for Ballejos connecting him to the murders of Cordova and Serna.