Suspect in Deaths of 4 Relatives on Navajo Territory Surrenders

A 25-year-old man who eluded officers for about 15 hours after the shooting deaths of four relatives surrendered Friday on a rocky ridge near a dirt road.

Stanley Secatero is accused of killing his relatives Thursday night, authorities said. He apparently was upset because they had turned his brother in to police for a $1,000 reward.

Secatero had fled into the rugged sandstone formations of the remote Canoncito Navajo Reservation 30 miles west of Albuquerque.

Police negotiated with Secatero as he stood sobbing on the ridge, a .22-caliber rifle in his hand, said a Navajo investigator who declined to give her name. He dropped his rifle before surrendering.

Police converged on the ridge after getting a call from a resident who spotted an armed man.

The Navajo investigator had said earlier in the day that there were two other people killed. FBI Agent Ron Dick said he could confirm only that four were dead and one wounded. Navajo police referred all questions to the FBI.

“This is a very sudden shock,” said Tony Secatero, president of the Canoncito Navajos. About 2,800 people live in the rural community. It wasn’t immediately clear if Tony Secatero was related to Stanley Secatero.

Stanley Secatero is accused of killing his grandmother, two aunts and an uncle and wounding one other person.

The dispute apparently involved Secatero’s 33-year-old brother, Wesley, who was jailed on an aggravated battery charge in Albuquerque.

Secatero believed other family members had turned his brother in for a reward, said Brenda Platero, who lives half a mile from where the relatives were shot.

Platero’s boyfriend, Raymond Willis, said he saw the bodies of Secatero’s aunt and uncle, Agnes and Eddie Secatero, lying in the mud beside their truck.

The other dead were identified by neighbors as Secatero’s grandmother, Lena Secatero, and his aunt, Rose Nelson.

The wounded person, a woman, was in satisfactory condition.