'I left her in there': Man admits chopping up mother and storing her in a chest freezer with food while living with her remains for weeks, bodycam footage shows

Shocking caller details person been revealed successful a bizarre execution lawsuit retired of New Mexico, wherever a antheral allegedly killed his ain mother, dismembered her body, stored her remains successful a freezer, and past went astir his concern for respective weeks earlier his arrest.

Leroy Felix Vallejos, 49, stands accused of myriad crimes including 2 counts of murder successful the archetypal degree, 3 counts of battery, 2 counts of tampering with evidence, and 1 number of maltreatment of a nonmigratory resulting successful death, according to Bernalillo County jailhouse records.

The victim, 69-year-old Ernestina Lucero, was killed sometime successful the autumn of 2025 astatine her ain location connected Rhode Island Street NE successful Albuquerque.

In October 2025, she was reported missing by household members and neighbors. That aforesaid month, the suspect himself called his mother's location wellness attraction institution asking to beryllium paid adjacent though helium said helium had not seen her successful implicit a week, according to a transgression ailment obtained by Albuquerque-based CBS affiliate KRQE.

Police yet performed a payment cheque astatine the residence and Vallejos allowed instrumentality enforcement to participate and execute a search, the ailment says. The suspect allegedly said his parent was traveling successful Mexico connected a abrogation with her boyfriend, but investigators became suspicious erstwhile they recovered the woman's medicine successful the bathroom, according to the charging document.

Officers past looked wrong a thorax freezer and, aft moving astir immoderate boxes of frozen food, recovered garbage bags containing what appeared to beryllium evident pistillate quality remains, constabulary said.

Body-worn camera footage recently obtained by KRQE shows the contiguous enactment aft the gruesome discovery.

"What's up, boss?" the suspect asks.

To which the serviceman replies: "Let's measurement outside."

"All right," Vallejos replies.

Then the officers makes the arrest, saying: "Go and enactment your hands down your back. She's successful the freezer."

A further hunt of the location recovered bloodstains nether the sink, according to instrumentality enforcement. In a custodial interview, Vallejos admitted to choking his ma to decease immoderate 3 weeks prior, constabulary said. The suspect went connected to accidental Lucero was conspiring against him with others and she was portion of a "group of radical giving their lives to darkness," according to the complaint.

"I f–ing strangled her, eh," Vallejos says successful the footage.

Later, the suspect and a detective spell implicit what happened aft the pistillate was killed and dismembered.

"I enactment her successful the freezer," Vallejos says.

The detective clarifies: "Okay, you near her successful the freezer."

Slightly annoyed-sounding, Vallejos replies: "I told you, I enactment her successful determination and I near her successful there."

The antheral past reportedly described however helium utilized an electrical saw to dismember the victim's assemblage — earlier focusing connected the purported quality of the narration betwixt parent and son.

"I went for years and years, trying to delight her, trying to marque her happy," the suspect told a detective. "I begged, I pleaded."

At 1 point, Vallejos relays concerns that his parent was someway progressive successful the supernatural, telling the detective: "It's witchcraft. She did witchcraft connected me. I don't cognize what she did."

During different interaction, however, the admitted slayer appears somewhat contrite astir the brutal matricidal violence.

"I conscionable went off, man, I didn't deliberation astir it," Vallejos told the detective. "During, it was conscionable like, wherefore couldn't you conscionable permission maine the f— alone? What did I ever bash to you? Besides emotion you?"

Later on, the suspect added: "I messed up, man. I privation I didn't bash that."

Vallejos besides told detectives helium thought astir turning himself successful — but was disquieted astir what would hap to his dogs.

In December 2025, a tribunal deemed the suspect incompetent to basal trial. Earlier this month, helium was committed to New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute successful bid to person intelligence wellness services until helium is deemed competent to basal trial.