This report is the first of a two-part series by City Desk’s Elise Kaplan and Bethany Raja. To read more about the victims families find part two here.
(c) City Desk ABQ. Republish our stories with permission from editor@abq.news
After more than 30 years of waiting and agonizing for their children, the families of Stella Gonzales, Althea Oakeley and Kaitlyn Arquette, today received a measure of justice for the murders that shook Albuquerque in the late 1980s.
Paul Apodaca, 55, an Albuquerque man who in 2021 confessed to killing the three girls, pleaded guilty to three counts of second degree murder, two with firearm enhancements, one count of kidnapping and one count of attempted rape in Second Judicial District Court Thursday afternoon.
At the hearing, Apodaca was sentenced to 62 years within the New Mexico Department of Corrections, with an incarceration term of 45 years. Any time not served in custody will be suspended on five years of supervised probation. He must also register as a sex offender.
During the hearing, members of the victim’s families read victim impact statements, and Apodaca also made a statement to the families and the court.
“It sounds like today’s the day where there’s a lot of closure that will be brought for family members who have been suffering,” said Judge Cindy Leos.
Apodaca’s statement
Addressing the court, Apodaca said he should never have been allowed access to firearms, because when he was 13, he was placed in a psychiatric hospital after he lost his father and uncle to gun violence.
After a 1991 conviction, Apodaca was no longer permitted to have access to firearms.
“I confessed to these horrible crimes in order to bring closure to the families of these young women, as well as give them the justice they deserve. I apologize with all of my heart for the pain I have caused,” he said.
The murders
Althea Oakeley, 21, was a University of New Mexico student at the time of her murder, and Apodaca was a security guard at Technical Vocational Institute—now Central New Mexico Community College. Apodaca told authorities that on June 22, 1988, he saw Oakeley and planned to rape her, but she smiled at him so he stabbed her to death instead.
Four months later on Sept. 9, 13-year-old Stella Gonzales and a friend were walking on Central Avenue, east of Tingley Drive, when at 1:15 a.m., they were confronted by a man in a car. That man, Apodaca, shot at the two girls. Gonzales was struck by one of the bullets, and was taken to a local hospital where she died as a result of her injuries.
Kaitlyn Arquette, 18, had just graduated from high school when she was killed. She was shot in the head as she drove east on Lomas near Broadway after leaving a friend’s house on July 16, 1989. Arquette’s mother, Lois Duncan, was an award-winning author of multiple books, such as, “I know what you did last summer,” “Killing Mr. Griffin,” and “Hotel for dogs.” Some of Duncan’s books were adapted into feature films. After her daughter’s murder, Duncan spent her life looking for answers, and wrote a book about her daughter’s murder called, “Who killed my daughter?” She made numerous public appearances on Arquette’s behalf. Duncan died on June 15, 2016, in Florida.
The confession
Apodaca confessed to killing the three girls, and to several rapes, after he was arrested by University of New Mexico police in 2021 for a probation violation.
After the arrest, a UNM police officer asked Apodaca if the air conditioning was turned on in the back of the car. Apodaca told the officer that he didn’t deserve to have air conditioning because of all the killings he had done. He then confessed that he’d killed Oakeley and Arquette.
The UNM police then called an Albuquerque Police Detective and Apodaca confessed to also killing Gonzales.
In his confession to the University of New Mexico and Albuquerque Police, Apodaca said he committed these murders because he hated women.
At a November hearing, Apodaca’s attorneys argued that his confession should be thrown out, because he was questioned in a holding cell at the university police department, needed mental health treatment, and wasn’t immediately read his Miranda Warning, but Leos denied their request, stating that Apodaca made statements about the murders to law enforcement without prompting.