Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Crime Beat

For the second year in a row my work covering the state Legislature has been interrupted by police apparently cracking an old unsolved Santa Fe murder that I'd covered during my years as a crime reporter.

Yesterday I learned that a DNA test had linked Cowgirl Hall of Fame rapist Chris McClendon to the 1989 killing of Tracy Barker. READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE.

(Basic civics reminder: McClendon hasn't been charged in the Barker case, let alone tried and convicted.)

Last year -- right in the middle of the legislative session -- convicted Texas murderer and former Santa Fe resident David "Little Blue" Morton confessed to Santa Fe police that he'd killed his neighbor Teri Mulvaney in 1984 as well as Janet Benoit in 1983, Local authorities still haven't charged Morton in the Santa Fe killings. He was tried for killing Mulvaney back in the '80s but the jury was hung, voting 11 to 1 to acquit him.

I guess one could make a bad joke about the fact that my coverage of the Legislature had already been interrupted by a "mass murder" this year: John Kerry's merciless slaughter of his opponents in the New Mexico Democratic caucus last week.

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