Argument about a haircut ends with two dead in Pecos [View all]

An argument over a haircut went awry, leading to a deadly shooting Saturday night at a home in Pecos, New Mexico State Police said.

Mark Valencia, 40, was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder and a count of attempted murder after he admitted to police he had killed Steven Singer, 40, of Santa Fe and Eva Aragon, 48, also of Santa Fe, according to an arrest warrant affidavit filed in San Miguel County Magistrate Court. Aragon was Valencia’s girlfriend, the document said.

Officers found Valencia sitting in the driver’s seat of a brown van parked in front of the house. He was bloodied and possibly intoxicated, the affidavit said. Valencia told state police the four had been drinking together earlier that night. The men then got into an argument because Singer had given him a haircut but “only cut half his hair,” Valencia said, according to the affidavit. As the night went on, the argument escalated.

David Sturgeon said Valencia became upset by his argument with Singer. As the argument escalated, Sturgeon said, Valencia warned the three others he was going to get his gun from his car. When he returned, Sturgeon said, Valencia shot Singer in the face with a black semi-automatic handgun, and then shot Aragon in the head as she tried to tend to Singer’s wounds. Sturgeon ran to a bedroom closet to hide and called 911 as Valencia left the house, yelling that he was going to kill someone.

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/argument-about-a-haircut-ends-with-two-dead-in-pecos/article_6f5d3f72-5c32-11ec-978f-27fe4e6cdf87.html

Mark Valencia