Estranged wife Erica Valdez received 15 years after pleading guilty in the death of her husband, Joel Valdez.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A Fourth of July confrontation at a Motel 6 began a night of gunfire that ended with Joel Valdez dead and his estranged wife, Erica Valdez, charged with murder.
The case reached its punishment phase nearly three years later when a Bernalillo County judge sentenced Erica Valdez to 15 years in prison. She had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder with a firearm enhancement and shooting at a dwelling with a firearm enhancement. Prosecutors said the motel fight mattered because it showed the dispute had moved from private arguments to public, armed confrontations before the fatal shooting.
The motel encounter involved four people tied to the breakdown of the marriage. Police said Erica Valdez had been dating James Sena, who worked as a security guard at the Motel 6. Joel Valdez arrived there with a woman he had been seeing and confronted Erica Valdez and Sena. Authorities said Sena pointed a handgun at Joel Valdez. Erica Valdez then came to the doorway with a handgun and yelled for Joel Valdez and the woman to leave. The woman later told investigators she saw what she believed was a black handgun with an extended clip. As Joel Valdez and the woman drove away, the woman heard what sounded like four or five shots. She told police she did not know whether the shots were aimed at them or fired into the air.
The fight then shifted to the home on Andrews Avenue, where Erica and Joel Valdez had lived. Police said Erica Valdez arrived at about 9:40 p.m. and pointed a gun at Joel Valdez’s chest. A 911 call came in one minute later from the residence. Investigators said the call captured a woman yelling that her husband had brought a mistress to the home and threatening to shoot. As Erica Valdez left, surveillance recorded a burst of automatic gunfire nearby. Police later found bullet damage at the home. A relative reported that Erica Valdez called after the shooting and said, “I just sprayed the house.” The wording of that call became one of the details prosecutors used to describe the shooting as deliberate and escalating.
Another confrontation followed on 98th Street. Police said a vehicle returned to the area shortly after 11 p.m. and a verbal argument could be seen or heard on surveillance before another burst of gunfire. Family members who arrived after learning about the house shooting saw Joel Valdez’s car with a door open. They also saw a dark sedan believed to be Erica Valdez’s car make a U-turn and leave. Joel Valdez’s body was found in the road next to his car. Police said the couple’s 16-year-old daughter saw her mother drive off and found her father dead. Casings recovered from the road and from the area in front of the home helped investigators connect the two shooting scenes. Detectives said two different firearms appeared to have been used that night.
The marriage had been deteriorating for months before the holiday. Relatives told police Erica and Joel Valdez had been fighting, and the disputes grew more intense in the week before the shooting as each accused the other of relationships outside the marriage. Prosecutors said Erica Valdez had been antagonizing her husband, calling him a slur and belittling him. Court documents said the couple’s daughter told Joel Valdez days before the killing that Erica Valdez was seeing other men. Joel Valdez became angry and then began his own relationships outside the marriage, according to the documents. Erica Valdez also had been charged in April 2023 with 911 abuse after allegedly calling police 27 times to report domestic violence, adding to the record of repeated police contact before the killing.
Albuquerque police arrested Erica Valdez after the shooting and later arrested Sena. Detectives said the two had been dating and had been suspects in a July 3 shooting at a house before the July 4 killing, though few public details were released about that earlier incident. Sena, 34 at the time, was charged with conspiracy to commit a first-degree felony in connection with Joel Valdez’s death. That charge was later dismissed after he accepted a 2024 plea deal for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Erica Valdez’s case continued toward a plea. By admitting guilt to second-degree murder and shooting at a dwelling, she avoided a trial but accepted a conviction tied to the fatal gunfire and the shots at the home.
At sentencing, prosecutors asked the judge to impose 25 years. District Attorney Sam Bregman said Valdez had made multiple attempts to shoot her estranged husband before killing him. He said she first fired at him with an automatic pistol outside the home, left, then returned later with Sena before the final shooting a few streets away. The judge instead ordered a 15-year term. The sentence resolved the main criminal case against Erica Valdez but did not answer every public question about the night, including the full role of each person present at the final confrontation and the exact sequence of gunfire from each weapon.
The public record now leaves the motel, the Andrews Avenue home and 98th Street as the three locations that shaped the case. Erica Valdez is set to serve 15 years in prison for the killing of Joel Valdez.
Author note: Last updated June 15, 2026.