{"id":25569,"date":"2024-09-24T00:37:23","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T06:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/decomposing-body-found-in-home-of-the-man-who-shot-at-n-m-state-police-officer\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:20:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:20:57","slug":"decomposing-body-found-in-home-of-the-man-who-shot-at-n-m-state-police-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/decomposing-body-found-in-home-of-the-man-who-shot-at-n-m-state-police-officer\/","title":{"rendered":"Decomposing body found in home of the man who shot at N.M. State Police officer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Fernando
Fernando Silva, 40, of Farmington, was arrested Aug. 20, after he was accused of shooting at a New Mexico State Police officer during a routine traffic stop Aug. 19.<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A body has been found in the home of an Aztec man who was arrested by the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office for shooting at a New Mexico State Police officer.<\/p>\n

Fernando Leon Silva, 40, was arrested Aug. 20, a day after he shot at a New Mexico State Police officer. When deputies went to his home, they found the \u201cdecomposing\u201d body of Carlos Silva with a gunshot wound to the head.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re investigating the decedent found in the house,\u201d San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari said, adding an autopsy was completed on Carlos Silva, who was Fernando Silva\u2019s uncle.<\/p>\n

Deputies also found additional rifles, ammunition and suspected bomb making materials, but \u201cthere wasn\u2019t any bomb,\u201d Ferrari said.<\/p>\n

Silva was arraigned on Sept. 16 on charges of attempted murder in the second-degree, shooting at or from a motor vehicle, aggravated assault upon a peace officer, resisting, evading or obstructing an officer and aggravated fleeing a law enforcement officer. He pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n

These charges are in connection to the Aug. 19 incident in which Silva allegedly fired more than 50 rounds of ammunition with an AR-15-style rifle at New Mexico State Police officer Andrew Blea, who attempted to stop Silva for driving at a high rate of speed in the area of Pinon Hills Boulevard and West 30th Street, according to the arrest affidavit.<\/p>\n

Silva, who had no violent criminal record before this incident, did not hit Blea, but bullets did strike the officer\u2019s vehicle, causing the patrol unit to break down and stranding the officer at the location, the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Silva fled the scene heading north. San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Deputy Shelby Hines located Silva driving his Chrysler northbound on La Plata Highway, near mile marker 4. Hines stated in the affidavit that the car was traveling at \u201cexcess speeds of over 120 miles per hour,\u201d the deputy was unable to maintain sight of the vehicle after mile marker 8.<\/p>\n

When Silva was arrested, the San Juan County District Attorney\u2019s Office filed a motion to hold him in the San Juan County Detention until his trial, and 11th Judicial District Judge Curtis Gurley granted that motion.<\/p>\n

In the order, Gurley cited the finding of the \u201cdecomposing\u201d body in the house, as well as the additional rifles in the home and in Silva\u2019s vehicle.<\/p>\n

Gurley also wrote that Silva reportedly \u201cadmitted the initial action of the shooting at the NMSP officer and justifying that this reckless and violent act was necessary to protect his identification as an undercover employee for the local Region II Narcotics Task Force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferrari said Silva \u201chas never been an informant for Region 2.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the arraignment, Gurley asked when the case would be ready for trial and public defender Matthew Cockman said \u201cthe first of the year would be the earliest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gurley set a status hearing in the case for 9 a.m. Nov. 18 in his courtroom in Aztec.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sheriff\u2019s Office investigates death; Fernando Silva remains in custody<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25569","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=25569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78999,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25569\/revisions\/78999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25569"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}