The case turned on what a neighbor saw after a single shot at the apartment, say police.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Police in Albuquerque say a neighbor’s real-time account helped them build a homicide case after a man was shot outside a northeast apartment and his brother was found beside him on the ground.
The witness perspective matters because it bridges the gap between the gunshot inside the apartment and the evidence detectives later said they recovered with a search warrant. In the first public accounts of the case, investigators relied on that outside view, statements from a relative in the apartment and admissions they say came from Benjamin Chess after his brother, Adam Chess, died.
The emergency response began when a neighbor called 911 after Adam Chess, 54, came out of the apartment and said his brother had shot him, according to police. Officers were sent to the 2800 block of Palo Verde Drive NE at about 6:55 p.m. on Feb. 26. They arrived to find Adam outside Apartment A with a gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said Benjamin Chess, 55, was lying next to him on the ground when officers got there. That detail gave the case an unusual stillness at the moment of contact: the fatal act was already over, the suspect had not fled and the investigation turned immediately to what had happened in the seconds before officers arrived.
The same neighbor told detectives that while he was on the phone with 911, he saw Benjamin leave the apartment carrying a trash bag and put it into an outside trash receptacle. Investigators later obtained a warrant and said they found a single .243-caliber shell casing inside that bag. They also recovered a .243-caliber bolt-action rifle from a laundry basket in the hallway of the apartment. Detectives said the rifle appeared to have been cycled, which they took as a sign that the spent casing had been removed after the shot. Those details support the evidence-tampering allegation filed against Benjamin. Public reports did not describe whether any surveillance video exists, whether officers recovered blood evidence inside the apartment hallway or whether additional ballistic results had been completed.
Only after that evidence trail was outlined did investigators begin to sketch the argument that led to the killing. Police said an aunt who lives at the apartment told detectives that Benjamin was staying with her and Adam sometimes came by to stay. She said the brothers often fought. On the night of the shooting, she heard them arguing and saw Adam charge at Benjamin, but she did not see either man with a weapon. She went inside and then heard a loud bang. When she looked again, police said, she saw Benjamin place a brown rifle in a hallway laundry basket. Her statement gave detectives a partial account from inside the home, but it left open the central unanswered question of what exactly happened in the instant before the gun fired.
Benjamin’s own account, as described by police, did not close that gap. Detectives said he told them Adam had a history of drinking every day and starting confrontations, behavior Benjamin described as “slowly killing us all.” He said Adam came back to the apartment that evening and pounded on the door. Benjamin told detectives he was overwhelmed, remembered going down the hallway and shooting Adam with a rifle, but claimed he did not remember taking the gun from a case in his bedroom or loading it. He also said he did not remember removing the casing and throwing it away. That combination of acknowledgment and claimed memory loss may become a major issue if the case reaches trial, especially if attorneys argue over intent, planning or consciousness of guilt.
For prosecutors, the case now moves from a witness-driven first narrative into the slower work of formal court process. Benjamin Chess was charged with an open count of murder and tampering with evidence and booked into the Metro Detention Center. Early reports said prosecutors sought to hold him without bond, but no future court date was publicly listed at that stage. The open count leaves room for prosecutors to settle later on the precise murder theory. The unresolved record also leaves room for future disputes over whether there was any immediate threat, whether the evidence disposal was deliberate and how much the jury should make of Benjamin’s statements after the shooting.
As of March 31, 2026, the case stood as an early-stage homicide prosecution built on one neighbor’s call for help, one relative’s account from inside the apartment and one evidence trail detectives say led straight back to the gun.
Author note: Last updated March 31, 2026.