Villegas pleads guilty to killing wife

SENTINEL MANAGING EDITOR

SEMINOLE — A 35-year-old man accused of killing his wife and dumping her bound and nude body in an Eddy County, ravine accepted a plea deal Friday morning as attorneys were in the process of selecting a jury for his murder trial.

Juan Villegas, 35, accepted a plea agreement offered by the 106th District Attorney’s Office on Monday, which will now see him serve 30 years in the Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice system for the death of his estranged 24-year-old wife, Anna L. Villegas, in November 2013.

Juan Villegas who was indicted by a Gaines County Grand Jury for one count of capital murder, as well as one count of murder and one count of aggravated kidnapping, entered his guilty plea before 106th

District Judge Carter T. Schildknecht on Friday morning to the murder count.

As part of the deal, 106th District Attorney Phillip Mack Furlow removed the capital murder charge from Juan Villegas’ list of charges. According to court documents obtained by the Seminole Sentinel on Friday morning, the count of aggravated kidnapping was rolled in as part of the murder plea agreement.

“We hope this plea agreement will now bring some closure to the victim’s family, especially the victim’s child,” said Furlow following Friday morning’s court proceedings, held inside the 106th District Courtroom at the Gaines County Courthouse.

Anna Villegas’ body was found nude and bound in near the Pecos river in rural Eddy County on Nov. 29, 2013. She was reported missing to Gaines County Sheriff’s Office officials by a person identified as a “friend” just days before her body’s discovery. In a story produced by the Carlsbad Current-Argus following the discovery of her body, Anna Villegas’ family members stated the woman was scheduled to have a divorce hearing on the day she disappeared, which occurred on Nov. 21, 2013.

According to initial autopsy reports, the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator determined Anna Villegas’ cause of death to be asphyxiation. In addition, the medical investigator’s office revealed days later that Anna Villegas’ body showed no signs of sexual assault.

Investigators believe Juan Villegas and 48-year-old Carlos Najera of Hobbs abducted Anna Villegas from her residence — located on CR 341 in western Gaines County near the New Mexico-Texas border — before they killed her and dumped her body off Highway 31 (Potash Mines Rd.) near a railroad bridge near Loving.

Najera, in October 2016, entered into a plea agreement with the 106th District Court for his alleged involvement in the incident. He was also indicted on a capital murder charge, as well as one count of murder and one count of aggravated kidnapping.

In Najera’s plea agreement, prosecutors with the 106th District Attorney’s office agreed to drop their capital murder and aggravated kidnapping charges.

Najera was then sentenced to 30 years in the Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice system and was granted 1,051 days — or over two years — of “time served” credit toward his sentence.

Along with the GCSD, investigators with the Eddy County Sheriff’s Dept., Hobbs Police Dept., New Mexico State Police, Texas Rangers and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) were all believed to be involved in the investigation of the case.

Juan Villegas, according to court documents, was also ordered to pay for court costs associated with the proceedings and was given 1,636 days — or more than four years — “time served” jail credit. The 106th District Court called a jury pool of 600 Gaines County residents serve as potential jurors for the trial.

Juan Villegas was transported back to the Gaines County Law Enforcement Center under the custody of the Gaines County Sheriff’s Office on Friday morning, where he will remain until a time is determined for his transfer to the TDCJ system.