NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – The woman charged with killing a Santa Fe police officer and a retired Las Vegas firefighter is about to face a jury.
Chaos and confusion were precursors to the arrest of Jeannine Jaramillo in 2022. It all started at a Santa Fe apartment complex where a woman asked someone to call 911, saying a man was holding her at knifepoint in a car.
Minutes later, police spotted the car, and a chase began in neighborhoods, then onto I-25 in the wrong direction. Retired Las Vegas firefighter Frank Lovato narrowly missed the wrong-way driver but crashed head-on into Santa Fe Police Officer Robert Duran, who was in pursuit.
Both Lovato and Duran died in the crash. When law enforcement caught up to the car that crashed on the side of the interstate, they found Jaramillo, who claimed she was kidnapped by her boyfriend, who was nowhere to be found.
“He was just going super fast. I was thinking he was going to shoot me right there or start shooting at the police,” Jaramillo told officers.
Her story launched a manhunt, but investigators realized it wasn’t adding up. They soon determined she was the only person in the car. It later came out that Jaramillo had made up tales like this two times before.
One time in September 2021, law enforcement was chasing Jaramillo in a stolen car in Cibola County before she crashed and was arrested. Then Jaramillo was arrested again the following month after police found her in another stolen vehicle. In both cases, she said a man forced her to commit the crimes, but it turned out she acted alone.
Jaramillo was sentenced to 18 months after pleading guilty in those two cases in which no one was hurt. But for the latest incident involving the deaths of Lovato and Duran, she faces charges, including two counts of first-degree murder.
For that case, jury selection will take place on Wednesday in Santa Fe.