{"id":102366,"date":"2017-12-19T21:38:26","date_gmt":"2017-12-20T04:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-man-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-for-killing-former-durango-woman\/"},"modified":"2017-12-19T21:38:26","modified_gmt":"2017-12-20T04:38:26","slug":"farmington-man-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-for-killing-former-durango-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-man-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-for-killing-former-durango-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmington man sentenced to life in prison for killing former Durango woman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Stallings\"
Stallings<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A Farmington man who was convicted of killing a longtime Durango resident has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, a jury found Rick Stallings, 52, guilty of five felonies \u2013 including first-degree murder \u2013 after a weeklong trial. Other charges included aggravated burglary with a deadly weapon, unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, theft of a firearm and theft of a credit card.<\/p>\n

Stallings was given the life sentence Wednesday, said Dustin O\u2019Brien, chief deputy district attorney for the 11th Judicial District in New Mexico. Stallings\u2019 sentence is only the second life sentence without the possibility of parole since the state repealed its death penalty in 2009, O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom what I understand, it\u2019s as good a result as can be expected,\u201d O\u2019Brien said of the response from the victim\u2019s family.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 1, 2015, Karen Cugnini, a former Durango resident, was found dead from a gunshot wound to the back of the head at her home in Flora Vista, a small community about 10 miles northeast of Farmington.<\/p>\n

Authorities said Stallings entered Cugnini\u2019s home with the intent of stealing her possessions. It\u2019s believed Cugnini, who was 69 at the time, came home during the burglary, and was shot by Stallings.<\/p>\n

Two days later, Stallings was found in another home in Farmington. He refused to come out, so authorities called a SWAT team and used flash grenades to eventually apprehend Stallings.<\/p>\n

For more than two years, Stallings delayed his trial. He repeatedly fired his public defender, requesting instead to represent himself, only to re-hire his court-appointed attorney. The trial was also delayed for a mental health evaluation, which ultimately found Stallings competent to stand trial.<\/p>\n

Stallings\u2019 case finally went to trial this fall. He represented himself with a public defender as standby counsel, O\u2019Brien said. Stallings has denied killing Cugnini.<\/p>\n

Because of the other convictions, which run consecutively, O\u2019Brien said it is unlikely Stallings will get out of prison if he appeals.<\/p>\n

Stallings also has three pending cases: possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of methamphetamine and battery on a police officer, O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n

The Cugninis are a longtime ranching family in La Plata County. Becky Cugnini, Karen\u2019s daughter, gave a statement to the court before the sentencing, according to The Farmington Daily Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do feel like justice was served,\u201d Becky Cugnini said. \u201cHopefully now, we can start the healing process.\u201d<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cugnini was shot to death in her own home<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":102367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,133,168,13,131,443],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-102366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-homicide","tag-san-juan-county-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102366"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=102366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}