John Paul Ballejos appears in a September 2022 mugshot. (Albuquerque Police Department)
A New Mexico man has a penchant for killing his victims in sets of two, according to authorities in the Land of Enchantment.
John Paul Ballejos, 31, was arrested in early September 2022 for the alleged murder of Daniel Humphrey, 31, and Humphrey’s aunt, Sonia Tenorio, 46, according to the Albuquerque Police Department.
He was charged with two additional murders – but much earlier – over the weekend, according to newly filed court records.
The first two victims had been shot and killed amid a dispute over a bullet fired through the floor of an apartment and the ceiling of the unit below, and an eviction proceeding that s ensued, police said at the time.
Ballejos allegedly fired a shot into Humphrey’s apartment, and their joint landlord wanted him out, according to the ODA. During the turmoil, Cynthia Humphrey, the male victim’s sister, also reported Ballejos texting and harassing her, police said.
On Friday, September 2, 2022, a hooded assailant shot Daniel Humphrey twice in the head as he attempted to enter his front door, surveillance footage showed. Detectives then found Tenorio inside his nephew’s apartment with gunshot wounds to his face and head. Cynthia Humphrey’s bedroom door had been kicked in, but she managed to escape the violence as she was not home at the time.
“Witnesses identified the attacker shown in the surveillance video as John Paul Ballejos,” APD wrote in a press release.
The circumstances of his arrest, the following afternoon, had a certain macabre air – due to another pair of deaths.
Police noted that Ballejos was found “in a Barelas [neighborhood] home that was the site of a separate double homicide in May.
Late on May 31, 2022, Hesiquio “JR” Marcos Cordova, 45, and his longtime girlfriend, Virginia M. Serna, 46, were shot. Cordova was pronounced dead in the early hours of the morning the following day. Serna was determined to be dead the very night she was shot.
In a police interview, Serna’s son said his mother and stepfather were watching his 2-year-old daughter when six or seven shots took their lives. He told police the two lifelong friends and lovers “had no problems with anyone except for [Cordova’s] nephew,” says Ballejos, a criminal complaint obtained by Law&Crime.
According to the victim’s son, he “wasn’t sure” of the underlying issue between the couple and Ballejos, but said he “has already made threats to shoot them.” The grieving son recalled his mother, Serna, telling her she had bought a gun specifically to protect herself from Ballejos, relayed an alleged fight between him and Cordova, and said his mother had expressed concern that Cordova’s nephew intends to harm them.
“[The son] said his mother and stepfather had filed a few police reports regarding their issues with [Ballejos]and a restraining order was entered against him,” the lawsuit filed last week in a Bernalillo County court reads.
At the time of his death, Serna had filed four reports that Ballejos had violated the restraining order issued against him.
Last month, investigators filed a request to directly collect and compare shell casings found at the May 2022 and September 2022 murder sites, the complaint says.
Meanwhile, a casing from an unrelated shooting incident — in December 2021 — has been compared and linked to casings from both sets of murders, according to Albuquerque police.
But the witnesses’ allegations against Ballejos were made immediately to the police. The defendant’s family quickly blamed him for the earlier killings, but police were unable to plead the case.
Months later, Ballejos allegedly killed a man and a woman again.
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