{"id":34184,"date":"2023-05-04T22:22:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-05T04:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cops-man-borrows-phone-admits-killing-former-landlord-in-2008\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:16:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:16:32","slug":"cops-man-borrows-phone-admits-killing-former-landlord-in-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cops-man-borrows-phone-admits-killing-former-landlord-in-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"Cops: Man borrows phone, admits killing former landlord in 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Blotter
Blotter lights<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A New Mexico man, overwhelmed by guilt, borrowed a cellphone to call 911 and confess to the 2008 killing of his former landlord and he also told police where the body was buried, authorities said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Police said Tony Ray Peralta, 37, of Roswell, was booked into the Chaves County jail on suspicion of murder.<\/p>\n

They said Peralta went to a store Monday afternoon, borrowed a cellphone to call 911 and told a dispatcher that he had killed someone. Officers went to the store and Peralta was detained for questioning.<\/p>\n

Police investigators then obtained a search warrant for a house where Peralta had been a tenant of 69-year-old William Blodgett. He told them where he buried the body, and they found a boot, bones and dentures after removing plywood floorboards from a detached room on the side of the house.<\/p>\n

A tearful Peralta told police during an interview that he didn\u2019t know why he had killed Blodgett and that he just needed to confess, according to an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint.<\/p>\n

Peralta told police he decided to come forward because \u201chis heart hurts\u201d and that the killing had been eating at him. He told the officer to tell Blodgett\u2019s family \u201cthat he was a good man and that he didn\u2019t deserve what I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have an excuse,\u201d he told police, according to the affidavit. \u201cA lot of people have an excuse, I don\u2019t have one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peralta was being represented by the major crimes unit within the public defender\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are just beginning to work with Mr. Peralta on this case, and we will make sure Mr. Peralta\u2019s due process is respected as this case starts to move through the court,\u201d said attorney Ray Conley, who leads the unit.<\/p>\n

The dentures found at the property were compared with Blodgett\u2019s dental records \u2014 obtained in early 2009 after he was reported missing \u2014 and that led to a positive identification, according to police.<\/p>\n

Blodgett\u2019s girlfriend and family had not seen him since late December 2008. She told police that Peralta, who was considered a suspect by police early on, allegedly had some sort or argument or fight with Blodgett, who had tried to evict him.<\/p>\n

Authorities at the time had talked to Blodgett\u2019s family, friends and neighbors and visited the home the two men shared, which appeared to have been abandoned with personal belongings still in place. Police found no immediate signs of foul play and Blodgett\u2019s vehicle was still there, according to the original missing person report.<\/p>\n

Detectives would periodically drive by the house but never spotted anyone. They also brought a dog trained to sniff for bodies to the property but found nothing.<\/p>\n

Police said the case went cold after investigators exhausted all leads until Peralta\u2019s 911 call.<\/p>\n

Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Associated Press writers Walter Berry and Terry Tang contributed from Phoenix.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peralta\u2019s tip leads to body buried in tenant\u2019s home<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[138],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-34184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34184","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=34184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82505,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34184\/revisions\/82505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34184"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=34184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}