EXPOSE’: The Murder and Cover-up of a Small Town Girl; Tera Chavez

PART 5 OF 5 in THE EYE ON ALBUQUERQUE EXPOSE'

PART 5: A Family Ripped Apart

On September 27, 2007, Tera Chavez reported Levi's Ford F-250 was stolen from their driveway. In addition to a police report, in the report to Allstate Insurance on October 6th, an affidavit was completed whereby Levi Chavez claimed all of the keys to the truck were accounted for. However, neighbors state they recall seeing Levi drive away in the truck in late September followed by at least one marked Albuquerque Police Department vehicle (police unit). Several hours later, Levi is seen returning to the house in his marked unit but the truck was never seen again at the Chavez home. Not again until it was recovered in Mexico around March 30th, 2011, with a changed VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) from a vehicle owned by former APD police officer and police APOA Union President, Pete Dwyer. And oddly, the truck had no damage to its steering column...

Dwyer would later be terminated by APD for his posting of inappropriate comments on Tweeter. Dwyer was also under suspicion by the APOA Union for unaccounted debts he racked up while he was president of the union.  Dwyer was pressured to resign from the Unions’ top spot.

On October 15th, the NM Insurance Fraud Bureau received a call concerning how to report a "fake stolen truck." A name similar to Tera's is left and the callback number left is the one for Tera's salon. Also in October, Levi opened up a new bank account and changed his APD direct deposit information to the new account so Tera could not see or access Levi’s income from APD.

Tera Chavez told fellow workers at the Salon, she owned, and her family if she turned up dead it was Levi who killed her.  You see Tera felt guilty about succumbing to Levi’s pressure and reporting his truck stolen. Levi reportedly told Tera and his friend that he wanted a “Caddi.” The purpose of reporting the truck stolen was to do insurance fraud which would allow Chavez to purchase his “Caddi.”  Tera was reported as telling friend and family that Levi threatened her; if she ever told, he would kill her.

Since 2005, Levi has been overextending himself with loans and credit card debt. The City of Rio Rancho sues him for breach of contract. Capital One credit card sues him for non-payment. Levi Chavez, Sr. takes out a credit card in his son's name and he defaults on that account leaving the credit card company to go after his son. They have high interest truck payments for the F-250 (which at that time has a resale value of around $20,000...so the payments are almost as large as a mortgage), they have high interest payments on the house because of his Zero-Down VA loan (in fact they owe more than it's worth), they have monthly bills and expenses, and Levi of course is living it large as he bounces from bed to bed with his various sex partners who are all cops. 

Over the weekend of October 21, 2007, Levi states that Tera called him "hundreds" of times. Yet his Verizon cell phone records show only sixteen calls on October 20, 2007, with his last call to his voicemail at 11:26PM. Then on October 21, 2007, he makes nine calls with his first one at 3:32PM to a City of Albuquerque phone number. At about 8:45PM he calls Debra Romero and talks with her for about 8 minutes. He then states he calls 911 around 9:01 stating he found his wife deceased and quickly plants the notion that her death is from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. From this call an avalanche of issues ensue, and intentionally lost in the debris is a crime scene.

VCSO deputies arrive and meet Levi in front of his house. He is quick to show them a text on his phone that states, "I'm so sad..." and shows a time of 1:06AM earlier that day. Levi keeps asserting it's her fault she did this. That he should've known. VCSO Detective Aaron Jones arrives and completes a brief interview with Levi. Levi has not given anybody information regarding Tera's parents. He has not expressed concern about Tera's children or Tera's family--especially Mr. Cordova who had given them a loan earlier to help them with their financial difficulties. Jones eventually obtains Tera's parents information and leaves the scene in the care of fellow VSCO deputies while he goes to provide notification to Tera's parents.

While Jones is away, Levi's lieutenant, former APD officer Shawn O'Connell was notified about the incident. He briefs his then commander, and current U.S. Marshall for New Mexico, Conrad Candelaria, that he is headed down to Tera's house on Ash Place.  Also en route is Sgt. James Silver of APD Internal Affairs, APD Officer Rick Ingram as a police union representative, and none other than APD Officer Ron Olivas. There are allegations that there were at least four other APD officers in addition to these four but they, as of today, have not been identified.  APD Standard Operating Procedures require that when an officer's duty is discharged an IA sergeant is sent to investigate. Consistent with that policy would be that the sergeant bring along a Field Investigator to examine the scene and discharged weapon. Given that there is City of Albuquerque property involved and harm stemming from the discharging of that property (the gun), it would be poor policy for the city not to inspect the scene or at least show that they made an effort to.

While this entourage of APD officers heads down to Los Lunas, Tera Chavez's father is notified of his daughter's death by Detective Jones. "Lock down the house" is Mr. Cordova's immediate response. Not denial that his daughter is gone, not disbelief at what he is being told in the early hours of October 21, but immediate problem solving.

But by then it's too late.

Inside the house, at least Lieutenant O'Connell, Sergeant Silver, and Officer Ingram go through the property walking past VCSO deputies and OMI personnel. Conveniently outside is Officer Olivas. Later Olivas would forcefully argue and sell that he "didn't go inside" sensing that something was wrong. Without speaking up, Olivas either let the others destroy the crime scene OR in fact helped. This would happen again almost two years later when Olivas "didn't go inside" but led former APD Officer Brad Ahrensfield believe that his son's arrest was imminent.

Inside the house, instead of throwing away a mattress that he claims was "cleared" by OMI and VCSO detectives, O'Connell cut away a patch of blood stained mattress fabric while Ingram and Silver later rummaged through furniture and personal effects. Something bloody is flushed down the toilet. Even though the weather had been very warm, VCSO detectives note that there are damp towels draped across chairs in the house.  Whatever other information the scene may have told about what happened is now gone under the footprints and manhandling of the Levi’s buddies evidence eradication team. This incident of flooding a crime scene (murder set up to look like a suicide) with cops would be repeated again but on a much grander and more macabre scale nearly three years later but this time with APD Deputy Chiefs and Captains.

With the scene walked over, Tera taken away, and Levi propagating a story that Tera was so troubled, despite getting divorce paperwork finalized, that she was so worried about finances, despite putting things in place for her own salon, and that her life revolved around him, despite her using APD Officer Nick Wheeler as a stepping stone to get out from Levi's manipulations, it seemed too late for there to be open consideration that this young woman's death was the result of a homicide.

In the years since this happened, former Officer Russell Perea was ultimately fired from APD. It turned out that HE tagged the belt tape and not Levi. But despite there being this absence of any activity where it is clear with clear and convincing (as the standard goes) evidence that Perea lied and covered for Levi Chavez, APD couldn't even fire him correctly. They terminated him not for lying to the dispatcher or his supervisor or his colleagues about being out of service and what he was doing (covering for Levi Chavez) but for not being "forthcoming." In other words, instead of relying on all that they had in hand, APD speculated about why Perea lied. Perea appealed his termination in the 2nd District Court room of Judge Bacon last month.  If Perea would have told the truth in the Levi Chavez murder trial it would have proved the City’s case against him.  Perea had to lie to save his job he was terminated from with APD and that is still on appeal.

In the summer of 2007, Perea had just lateraled over to APD via the 7th Lateral Academy class. He did not have a car yet and was assigned to work Team 5 of the Westside area command and to work with Levi Chavez. On the night of October 20, 2007, Perea drove Levi's car and Perea did all of the work while, in Perea's own words, "Levi texted all night." 

Levi would remain on the city's payroll until he was indicted in April 2011. Shortly thereafter, APD's chief would finally fire him. After endless occasions where it was clear Levi had lied to supervisors, citizens, and colleagues about his whereabouts and what he was doing, had falsified police records in the computer dispatch system, had dispatcher Desiree Gonzales falsely log him at places he wasn't at, had injured untold numbers of fellow officers....Chief Schultz waited to fire him until he had the cover of an indictment to terminate the officer. In true Schultzian fashion, Ray Schultz waited until it was not his decision to make. Keep in mind, when the murder occurred, Levi Chavez was still a probationary employee and could have been terminated for “any reason or no reason at all.”

Current CACU detective, and Levi's wife, Heather Chavez, was married to another officer in 2007. Upon returning home in mid-November not even a month after Tera's murder, that officer saw a car parked around the corner from his house. He pulled up the call history for the officer on his patrol computer and found it was a car assigned to Levi Chavez. But Chavez was logged on a call nowhere near his house. The officer pulled adjacent to his driveway, walked into his house, and inside found his wife with Levi Chavez.

One has to ask, if a person will falsify a police report, will lie about his location to a dispatcher, will seduce a fellow officer's wife in that officer's very home in the presence of their child....what won't that officer do?

EPILOGUE

Much of the details in this narrative over the last week come from public record sources. Sadly, much of this information was not presented to the jury in the trial because of weak lawyering by Valencia County Prosecutor McKay.  We at the Eye were so disgusted with the miscarriage of justice in the trial of Levi Chavez that we hope this effort over the last week tells the Cordova family that you are not alone and while many are afraid to speak out, we are not. And given the recent events over the last week, we will be even more aggressive in our exposure of misconduct and crimes by those in power. If you think we've been a pain to corrupt office holders over the last six years, stand by...

APD's new Chief, Allen Banks will take office this Friday. A few years ago when he was asked in a deposition about whether fraternization issues could negatively impair performance by APD officers given all that had happened with the Levi Chavez. Banks hesitated and then tried to evade the question by asking for clarification. When the interviewer reduced it to simple terms such as, do you think officers sleeping with fellow officer's wives would be problematic for the department, Banks answered, "I truly don't understand what you're asking me."

 

Who is the guilty one...

 

Disclaimer: The Eye On Albuquerque is not for profit and is a public opinion information blog. This story is based on facts gathered and our opinion as to what transpired based on those facts.