Cuba man charged in June shooting death of Lindrith teen

Sep. 5—More than three months after a teen from Lindrith was shot and killed along a roadway near the Northern New Mexico village, the Rio Arriba County Sheriff's Office has charged a man with murder in the slaying.

Derik Madrid, 21, of Cuba, N.M., faces a count of first-degree murder and a slew of other felonies in the June death of Trent Greene, 18, who had graduated from Cuba High School weeks earlier and was on the school's football team.

Sheriff's office reports tied to the investigation into Greene's death say witnesses told law enforcement officers a brawl at the Lindrith rodeo grounds in the early morning hours of June 2 escalated into a shootout among several people in two pickup trucks.

Madrid had not yet been arrested as of Thursday evening, sheriff's office Maj. Lorenzo Aguilar said in an interview. The other counts against Madrid are aggravated battery, shooting at or from a motor vehicle, six counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and two counts of child abuse, according to charges filed Wednesday in Rio Arriba County Magistrate Court.

Investigators believe Greene was riding in a pickup truck that was driven by Madrid when he was shot in the back, according to an arrest warrant affidavit against Madrid that was filed on Wednesday. The affidavit does not specify who authorities believe fired the bullet that killed Greene.

Greene's body was found with gunshot wounds on the side of N.M. 595, several miles from Lindrith, the following afternoon.

The fight began during a dance after the rodeo, several witnesses told investigators, and several men became involved in an altercation that had apparently stemmed from a misunderstanding related to two young men who were "playfully wrestling," sheriff's office Detective Matthew Jacobs wrote in the affidavit.

Jacobs wrote a cell phone video taken during the dance at the rodeo grounds shows Madrid wielding a gun with an extended magazine in the midst of the fight. Witnesses told him Madrid then ran off and fired several shots toward the crowd.

A woman told the detective she was at the dance with her daughters — ages 7 and 9 — when the gunshots went off, and that she feared for their lives, he wrote.

Madrid was named in a search warrant affidavit the sheriff's office filed in state District Court in the days after Greene was killed. The lead detective obtained a warrant to search his parents' pickup truck and home, located near the rural Sandoval County community of San Luis.

Investigators found that blood had been cleaned from the inside of the truck, Jacobs wrote.

A witness told investigators that after the dance he was driving a pickup truck and tried to block Madrid from driving back to the rodeo grounds and that Madrid began shooting at him from the truck, according to multiple reports and affidavits. The witness said he fired 13 rounds at Madrid's truck; deputies wrote the witness's truck had bullet holes on the outside and bullet casings inside of it.

State police responded to calls about gunshots from the rodeo grounds that night, but the officers did not know anyone had been hit by gunfire, Jacobs wrote.

Investigators say in the affidavit that Madrid and his brother left Greene's body on the side of the road after calling 911 multiple times and speaking to dispatchers from both Sandoval and Rio Arriba counties.

The call recordings show Madrid's brother told dispatchers they had been involved in an "incident" in Lindrith and believed police were looking for them, Jacobs wrote, but he never told dispatchers Greene had been shot.

Aguilar said the agency does not expect to file any more charges in the incident.

Reports from the monthslong homicide investigation provided by the sheriff's office indicate another person may have wounded in the melee.

A man provided one of the agency's deputies with a cellphone he had retrieved from the rodeo grounds the day of the incident, a June 4 report states. The man told the deputy the phone belonged to a woman who he saw physically fighting with another woman, an altercation he believed was related to the shooting.

"[The man] also told me that [he] heard multiple versions of what happened that evening but one thing he said was that he heard there were two males who had been shot and not just Trent Greene," the deputy wrote. "I told [the man] that I had not heard that but would advise the investigating deputies."