Bernadette Armijo’s punishment follows a case that moved from an October 2024 crime scene to arrests, plea agreements and continuing prosecutions.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Nearly four months passed between the discovery of Isaiah Montoya and Ernie Estrada dead inside a South Valley home and the first arrest in their killings. Nearly 18 months after those arrests, Bernadette Armijo has become the first defendant in the case to receive a prison sentence.
Armijo, 51, was ordered to serve 16 years after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Montoya, 24, and Estrada, 46. The Aug. 3 sentencing represents the clearest final result so far in a prosecution that has developed in stages since deputies responded to the home on Atrisco Drive SW on Oct. 20, 2024. Two other defendants publicly identified in the case, Israel Tijerina and Jay Kriling, remain at different points in the court process. Kriling has also pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is awaiting sentencing, while the murder charges against Tijerina remain unresolved.
The investigation began when Bernalillo County sheriff’s deputies responded that October night to 1250 Atrisco Drive SW and found the two men dead. Public reports later described the incident as a shooting. Authorities did not immediately announce arrests or a complete account of what investigators believed had happened inside the residence. Instead, detectives continued collecting evidence and interviewing people connected to the case. By the time the sheriff’s office publicly announced a series of arrests in February 2025, investigators said they had identified multiple people believed to have been involved. The arrests came on consecutive days, underscoring how the investigation shifted from a months-long evidence-gathering phase into a coordinated prosecution.
Tijerina was arrested Feb. 19, 2025, followed by Armijo on Feb. 20 and Kriling on Feb. 21. Law enforcement said the arrests involved coordination among the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, a U.S. Marshals task force and personnel working with the district attorney’s office. At that stage, the defendants did not all face the same allegations. Tijerina was described as facing a murder charge and tampering-with-evidence allegation. Armijo was accused of conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with evidence, while Kriling initially faced allegations including conspiracy to commit murder and aggravated battery. Those initial allegations were starting points in criminal cases that changed significantly as prosecutors continued pursuing them.
Details from the early court process offered limited insight into why investigators had focused on the three. Reporting on the complaint said deputies believed Armijo had helped orchestrate an attack involving one of the victims. Investigators also pointed to a telephone call involving Armijo and Tijerina while Tijerina was in custody, and they said Kriling knew specific information about the homicides. The allegations were important to the state’s effort to detain the defendants before trial, but they were not themselves verdicts. Prosecutors still would have been required to prove any charges taken to trial beyond a reasonable doubt. Armijo’s later decision to plead guilty ultimately removed that question from a jury in her own case.
As the prosecution advanced, the charges against Armijo grew more serious than the conspiracy allegations described when she was first arrested. Reporting on her later case said she had faced first-degree murder, aggravated burglary, tampering with evidence and four conspiracy counts before reaching a plea agreement. She ultimately admitted second-degree murder. That distinction matters to the chronology because the February 2025 arrest reports provide only an early snapshot of a developing prosecution. Grand jury proceedings, additional investigation and plea negotiations can alter the charges that remain before a case is resolved. Armijo’s second-degree-murder plea became the controlling disposition when the judge accepted it.
Her Aug. 3 sentencing then turned the focus from investigation to punishment. Bernalillo County authorities said the court imposed a 23-year sentence, including an enhancement connected to a firearm, and suspended seven years. The result was 16 years to be served in the New Mexico Corrections Department. The sentence formalized Armijo’s legal responsibility under the guilty plea and distinguished her case from those of the other defendants, whose proceedings were still continuing. It also ended the long period in which her status was defined by pending charges and pretrial hearings rather than a final judgment and prison term.
The hearing also exposed how differently families and courts can experience the same case. Courts must work through charges, plea agreements and sentencing rules, while relatives often follow an investigation through fragments of information that emerge over many months. Montoya’s sister told the court that her family had learned a troubling allegation about Armijo only after closely following the case for roughly 22 months. She said the family had been told Armijo wanted Montoya’s gold teeth as a trophy and argued that the information shaped how they understood Armijo’s intent. The claim was presented by the sister during her victim-impact statement; public reporting reviewed for this story does not establish it as an independent judicial finding about motive.
That distinction is significant because the criminal case against Armijo was resolved through her admission to second-degree murder, not through a trial in which prosecutors presented a complete theory of motive to a jury. Plea agreements often narrow the factual and legal questions a court must decide. Once Armijo pleaded guilty, sentencing centered on the offense she admitted, the authorized punishment and the effects of the killings on those left behind. The family’s statement supplied a personal account of those effects and of the information relatives said they had learned, but it did not reopen the question of what offense Armijo would be convicted of.
Kriling’s case followed another route toward resolution. A Second Judicial District Court calendar listed a change-of-plea hearing for April 8, 2026, in State of New Mexico v. Jay Richard Kriling Jr., and noted that a resolution had been reached. Later reporting said Kriling pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 27. That means two defendants have now admitted second-degree murder, but only Armijo has received her final punishment. Kriling’s coming sentencing will be another opportunity for the court to impose a sentence and for the case’s consequences to be addressed in a formal hearing.
Tijerina’s prosecution remains less settled. Current reporting lists charges against him including two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of aggravated burglary, four counts of conspiracy, tampering with evidence and a firearm-possession offense applicable to a person accused of being a felon in possession. His proceedings were interrupted by a competency evaluation. Court competency concerns whether a defendant can understand the proceedings and assist counsel at the present time; it does not determine guilt or innocence. Because Tijerina has not been convicted of the pending homicide charges, the allegations against him remain accusations that must be resolved through the court process.
The timeline now stretches from the Oct. 20, 2024, deaths to the February 2025 arrests, through multiple pretrial proceedings and into the guilty pleas and sentencing developments of 2026. That progression shows how a homicide case can remain active long after arrests are announced. Investigators first had to identify suspects and assemble a case, prosecutors then had to pursue separate charges against individual defendants, and the court had to address detention, competency and plea proceedings. Each defendant’s case has proceeded independently even though the charges arise from the same two deaths.
The next turn in the case belongs to Kriling, whose sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 27 after his second-degree-murder plea. His hearing will extend a court process that began with an unexplained double homicide in October 2024 and took months to produce arrests. Tijerina’s prosecution remains unresolved, while Armijo has moved beyond the pretrial stage and into a 16-year state prison term. The investigation that once centered on identifying suspects has therefore become three separate legal proceedings, each moving toward its own conclusion.
Author note: Last updated September 20, 2026.