A 30-year-old woman and her 46-year-old boyfriend were found dead inside a Las Cruces home Saturday morning in what police are investigating as a murder-suicide, with the couple's five children present at the time. Officers were dispatched around 8:30 a.m. to the 4100 block of Calle Libertad, where they discovered the bodies of Angelica Aguirre and Shane Perez.
According to ktsm.com, investigators believe Perez shot Aguirre before turning the gun on himself. The two had five children together, ranging in age from 3 to 14, and all five were reportedly in the home when the shooting occurred, as first reported by KFOX.
Children Placed With Relative After Discovery
New Mexico's Children, Youth and Families Department stepped in to help place the children in temporary custody with a relative, the station's report notes. Beyond confirming the ages of the children and the basic timeline of the shooting, authorities have not released further details about what led up to the deaths.
As of Monday, Las Cruces police said the investigation was continuing and that no additional information was available, according to organmountainnews.com. No further updates on the case, including any findings about what happened in the moments before the shooting, have been made public.
A Pattern Seen Across New Mexico
Cases like this one are not isolated in New Mexico. A federal survey cited by Searchlight New Mexico estimates that nearly 39% of New Mexico women, or roughly 315,000 people, have experienced sexual violence, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner.
The outlet also reported on the New Mexico Intimate Partner Violence Death Review Team's fiscal year 2025 report, which examined 28 deaths across 26 cases that occurred or were solved by police in 2021. That review found a history of intimate partner violence in more than three-quarters of the deaths, with prior domestic violence reports surfacing in half of the couples studied. Among the perpetrators reviewed, 85% had a known history of violence against intimate partners, half had previously been arrested on suspicion of domestic violence, and 27% had been convicted at least once.
A separate New Mexico Crime Victimization Survey published in September 2024 found that 19% of respondents reported experiencing physical or emotional abuse by a partner within the previous year, underscoring how often intimate partner violence surfaces in the data long before it turns lethal. No such history has been confirmed in the case of Aguirre and Perez, and police have not released any information connecting their deaths to prior reports or calls for service at the Calle Libertad residence.
