• Prosecutor Brian Decker dismissed murder case two weeks after a judge ordered one of Anthony Wagon‘s interrogations be suppressed • A judge suppressed Det. Jason Solomon‘s interrogation, where Wagon allegedly admitted to running down Jeremy Beard
• Wagon spent over three years in jail after initially being released on bond
AZTEC, N.M. — A prosecutor dismissed the murder case against Anthony Wagon, 23, three weeks after a judge suppressed Wagon’s interrogation by a Farmington detective, and three years after a judge ordered him held without bail pending trial.
Anthony Wagon
San Juan County District Attorney’s Office prosecutor Brian Decker filed the nolle prosequi dismissing the case on June 23, 2020, after District Court Judge Daylene Marsh suppressed Farmington Det. Jason Solomon‘s interrogation of Wagon following Jeremy Beard’s death on April 24, 2017.
Marsh wrote, in her order suppressing his statements to Solomon, that he was never read his rights. His attorney, Craig Acorn, also made the argument that Wagon was too drunk to consent to an interrogation, but her decision made his intoxication a moot point.
“The inadequacy of the advisement of rights requires the exclusion from use at trial of Defendant’s statement to Detective Solomon and whether Defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his rights has become moot,” Marsh wrote.
Marsh cited State v Serna, a Court of Appeals case from 2018. In that case, the Appeals Court found that a Miranda warning requires “that a person be warned, at least implicitly, that they have a right to counsel prior to questioning.” In the case of Ernest Serna, Sandoval Sheriff’s Deputy Sal Tortorici, reciting a Miranda warning from memory, told Serna he had a right to an attorney during questioning. The court found this to be “inadequate.”
On June 4, 2020, Decker filed a motion to dismiss his appeal and for Marsh to reconsider her suppression order.
He wrote that Stanton read Wagon the correct Miranda warning and that, when he testified during a motion hearing, it was from memory and not the card he carried. Marsh granted his motion and set a hearing for July 7, 2020.
Prosecutor Dustin O’Brien told the Farmington Daily Times that “the district court followed what is mandated by state law and the Farmington Police Department was issuing Miranda warnings consistent with law at the time.”
Police Spokeswoman Nicole Brown told the Daily Times that the case was “dismissed pending further investigation” following Marsh’s ruling and that the police department “is still pursuing and investigating the incident.”
Wagon was initially released on a bond following his arraignment in magistrate court but after the case was bound over, former district judge John Dean ordered Wagon held without bail on May 26, 2017.
“Based on the testimony of Tina Wagon, Defendant’s step-mother, Mr. Wagon has a history of anger issues than can cumulate (sic) in aggression and violence — particularly when Defendant does not get his way,” Dean wrote. “In fact, Ms. Wagon testified that Mr. Wagon one time became so upset he shoved her and caused her to fall.”
Dean wrote that Wagon “fled through a non-direct path” to his parent’s home on the reservation, that that he was “indifferent to the consequences of his actions” and that Wagon was a danger to the community.
A civil case filed by Beard’s father is still pending as is a battery on a peace officer case stemming from Wagon’s three years in jail.
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FARMINGTON, N.M. — The father of Jeremy Beard, allegedly intentionally run over in 2017, is suing the accused killer and his insurance company for his son’s death.
Anthony Wagon
Christian Beard filed the lawsuit in Farmington District Court on April 24, 2020, naming accused killer Anthony Wagon, 23, relatives Hershell Wagon and Tina Wagon and insurance companies MGA Insurance Company and Gainsco Insurance Company.
Anthony Wagon allegedly ran down Jeremy Beard, 29, on April 26, 2017 with his truck, after Jeremy Beard took him down during a scuffle following accusations over a stolen beer. Jeremy Beard was his aunt’s husband.
Christian Beard’s attorney, William Jaworski, wrote in the lawsuit that MGA and Gainsco insured the truck allegedly used to run over Jeremy Beard, and the three Wagons paid the insurance premiums.
When Anthony Wagon allegedly ran down Jeremy Beard, he operated the car in a “negligent and reckless manner,” Jaworski wrote.
“The car accident that killed Jeremy Beard was foreseeable,” he wrote. “The car accident was a proximate cause of Jeremy Beard’s death.”
He is asking for reasonable damages, compensatory damages for the loss of consortium, for the enhanced injury of death and punitive damages, according to the lawsuit.
Wagon allegedly ran down his aunt’s husband, April 26, 2017, in his car because he was allegedly mad about getting taken to the ground during a scuffle.
Wagon’s attorney, public defender Craig Acorn, filed a motion to suppress on Jan 16, 2020, followed by an addendum on March 3, 2020. After a hearing on May 14, 2020, Marsh issued her June 2, 2020 decision.
Acorn wrote that Wagon was very drunk and was never given his Miranda warnings, and even if it were given, he was too intoxicated to waive his rights.
“The inadequacy of the advisement of rights requires the exclusion from use at trial of Defendant’s statement to Detective Solomon and whether Defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his rights has become moot,” Marsh wrote.
However, his interview with Stanton, Griggs and Herrera was acceptable because of a Miranda warning.
“Defendant’s statements to Farmington Police Detectives Stanton, Griggs, or Herrera are not excluded from use at trial in this matter to the extent Defendant would have them excluded for the failure to properly Mirandize Defendant,” Marsh wrote.
AZTEC, N.M. — Attorneys have an hour to argue, Oct. 24, 2019, if statements Anthony Wagon made to Farmington Police detectives should be suppressed after they illegally seized him while on the Navajo reservation.
Wagon allegedly ran down his aunt’s husband, April 26, 2017, in his car because he was allegedly mad about getting taken to the ground during a scuffle.
Marsh previously denied a May 22 motion to dismiss the entire case filed by Wagon’s defense attorney, Craig Acorn. Acorn filed a separate motion to suppress Wagon’s statements on April 25.
Tavor Tom, a member of the Navajo nation, allegedly went on July 1, 2019 to Roberta Clyde’s house (his maternal aunt) and stabbed her repeatedly, killing her, stole her car, then crashed it into a fence, according to his alleged confession.
He was allegedly trying to get to Farmington because he wanted to steal the over-the-counter drug Mucinex, generically known as guaifenesin.
A federal grand jury indicted him eight days later on July 9, 2019, on a charge of second-degree murder.
At 10 a.m., July 2, 2019, the Roberta Clyde, 45, was found dead in her house by her father. Sometime during that same morning, Tavor Tom, of Shiprock, was found in the Clyde’s Jeep Cherokee, after he crashed into a fence in front of a church in Nenahnezad. Navajo Nation police officers found a bloody knife in the car, FBI agent Cary Cahoon wrote in an affidavit for an arrest warrant.
FBI agent Kalon Fancher interviewed Tom and advised him he did not have to speak with him, but Cahoon did not write if Fancher told Tom his Miranda rights.
According to Fancher’s interview with Tom, the latter allegedly admitted to killing Clydewith a folding knife he took from his father’s vehicle with the intention of going to her house to steal her car so he could drive it to Farmington to steal Mucinex, Cahoon wrote.
Tom allegedly said he went to the Clyde’s trailer, “slit her throat and then stabbed her seven (7) or (8) times with the knife he took from his father’s vehicle, and then stole her vehicle,” Cahoon wrote.
Tom allegedly said he drove to the Wal-Mart in Farmington, stole Mucinex from the store around 7 p.m. and drove on the back roads toward Shiprock, Cahoon wrote.
He then crashed the vehicle into a fence at a church in Nenahnezad, rendering the vehicle undriveable. He was found in the vehicle the next morning.
Crashed car
Navajo Nation firefighter Derrick Woody told Cahoon that he responded to Tom’s car crash and that Tom allegedly tried to overdose on Mucinex. The drug, as well as vomit, were found in the vehicle, Cahoon wrote.
Navajo Nation Sgt. Francis Yazzie told Cahoon that he also responded to the crash and he found a folding knife with blood on it on the passenger-side floorboard, Cahoon wrote.
Family interviews
Clyde’s father, only identified by the initials R. C., found his daughter, when he went to check on her at the behest of her adult children, who could not reach her on the phone, Cahoon wrote. Clyde is unnamed in federal court documents and referred to as “victim.”
“After R.C. discovered Victim and realized she was deceased, he called 911,” Cahoon wrote.
Cahoon was called by Navajo Nation detective Jerrick Curley that there had been a killing in Shiprock, in the exterior boundaries of the reservation, he wrote.
Curley told Cahoon that he found Clyde lying on her bedroom floor with multiple cuts and blood around her. He also told Cahoon that Clyde’s nephew, Tom, had been in a car crash near Nenahnezad. The car he crashed allegedly belonged to Clyde and inside the vehicle police found a knife with blood on it.
Clyde’s father, Tom’s grandfather, told Cahoon that Tom had come to his house, next door to the victim’s, at 6 p.m., July 1, 2019, to use his computer, and then left.
Tom’s mother, who was Clyde’s sister and is only identified by the initials “M.T.,” told Cahoon that Tom lived with her at her house in Shiprock, which was in “close proximity” to Clyde’s house, a single-wide trailer. Tom got around on a red ATV, parked next to R.C.’s house.
“M.T. received a text message from TOM the previous night (07/01/2019) and indicated he was with his friends,” Cahoon wrote. “M.T. went to visit Victim at her residence the previous evening (07/01/2019), at approximately 6:30 p.m., when M.T. arrived and saw that Victim’s vehicle was gone, she assumed Victim left in her vehicle to go somewhere.”
She said her son had been addicted to Mucinex for several years and uses it to get high.
“TOM also had been suicidal in the past and has become more violent recently,” he wrote.
M.T. alleged her son often takes her car without permission and drives it to stores where he can steal Mucinex. She also acknowledged that Tom was found in the Clyde’s vehicle, he wrote.
“M.T. believed TOM was the one who killed Victim,” Cahoon wrote. “R.C. and M.T. both advised that Tom often went by and visited Victim at her house and that they got along with one another.”
The crime scene
In the afternoon of July 2, 2019, officers searched the interior and exterior of Clyde’s trailer, although Cahoon did not write whom he obtained consent from, since Clyde was dead.
During the search, officers found the key to Tom’s red ATV on a couch in the living room. A cell phone was found on a different couch in the living room and there were drops of blood in the kitchen, laundry room and bedroom.
“Additionally, the medicine cabinet door was open in the kitchen and it appeared that someone had rummaged through the prescriptions and over-the-counter medications,” Cahoon wrote.
The field investigator with the Office of the Medical Investigator found Clyde had “trauma” and cuts to her neck, back and chest.
Pathologist Ross Zumwalt wrote in the autopsy report that Clyde suffered a total of 75 separate “sharp force injuries,” meaning stab wounds and incised, or slashing, wounds.
“Two of the stab wounds of the back of the head penetrated the skull resulting in bleeding around the brain,” Zumwalt wrote.
Clyde also has four stab wounds in her chest and one in her abdomen, which penetrated her stomach. She also has cutting wounds on her hands, which Zumwalt classified as probable defensive wounds.
“Death was a result of the blood loss caused by the multiple wounds,” Zumwalt wrote.
According to the deputy field investigation conducted by Kayelynn Williams, Clyde got home after work at 5:15 p.m. and went next door to check on her parents at 6 p.m.
Roberta Clyde
According to her obituary, Clyde had three children, Erik, Alyssa and Ryland Benally, all of Shiprock, as well as three sisters and two brothers.
She was a piano player for the Ojo Amarillo Baptist Church.
According to the court docket, Tom initially appeared July 3, 2019 and on July 10 in Albuquerque federal court, and he was ordered held indefinitely after his attorney waived a detention hearing.
On July 10, his attorney filed a waiver of a preliminary hearing. However, a federal grand jury had already indicted him on July 9, 2019, on a charge of second-degree murder.
Tom pleaded guilty, Nov. 24, 2020, to second-degree murder in front of federal Magistrate Judge Kirtan Khalsa during a virtual hearing that lasted just over 30 minutes. Khalsa deferred final acceptance of the plea deal until sentencing by a district court judge.
Prosecutors will agree that Tom accepted responsibility for his conduct and grant that, under the sentencing guidelines, he is entitled to a reduction of two levels from the base offense. Spindle and Tom’s defense attorney, James Loonam, can argue whatever they want when it comes to the sentence.
In the plea agreement, Tom wrote that he stabbed his aunt repeatedly with a knife, “intentionally and without justification.”
When interrogated by FBI agents, he said he stabbed her repeatedly and slit her throat, according to court documents.
Zumwalt did not write in the autopsy report her throat was slit but did note many wounds to the back of her neck, some of which went from the back to the front of her neck.
Sentencing guidelines
Second-degree murder carries a base offense level, per the federal sentencing guidelines for second-degree murder, is 38. The plea deal provides Tom with a two-level reduction for pleading guilty, putting the base level at 36.
According to the federal sentencing table, with little or no criminal history, that puts Tom’s proposed sentence, sans any increases or decreases, at 16 to 20 years. At a base offense level of 38, the level without the consideration of his guilty plea, the range increases to 20 to 24 years.
Based on a search of federal and state court records, Tom does not appear to have any prior state or federal arrests. His tribal criminal records are unknown.
His final sentence will be up to the sentencing judge.
Tom is asking for a seven-year sentence while Spindle is asking for the maximum under the sentencing guidelines, as calculated by the U.S. Probation Office, of 14 to 17.5 years.
Tom’s attorney, James Loonam, wrote in a sentencing memorandum that Tom’s age at the time, 18, was one reason, and that Tom, high on and addicted to dextromethorphan, also known as Mucinex, was “operating under diminished capacity” when he stabbed his aunt to death. That he killed a family member, and “will face consequences of loss of part of his family for the rest of his life,” was the third reason for giving Tom a sentence below the guidelines. Tom had been addicted to the drug since he was 14.
“Tavor knows that his actions have caused everyone he loves and cares about almost unbearable pain,” he wrote.
“Each hospitalization indicates that Tavor exhibited signs of chronic depression,” he wrote.
Loonam wrote that Tom’s actions were “a product of that (drug) abuse and addiction.”
Prosecutor Joseph Spindle wrote in his own sentencing memorandum that Johnson should sentence Tom to the high end of the sentencing guideline calculated by the U.S. Probation Office, 17.5 years.
Spindle wrote that Tom went to Clyde’s house to steal her car.
“However, once he was inside her house, the attempted theft became infinitely worse,” he wrote. “Before stealing her car, Defendant decided to stab his aunt seventy-five times in the face, back, abdomen, arms, hands and neck. She died of blood loss on the floor of her bedroom, alone and suffering.”
Among the reasons for a sentencing at the top of the guideline was how “senseless and brutal” it was.
“The stabbing was so frenzied, two of the stab wounds penetrated her skull,” Spindle wrote. “She died of blood loss. This level of brutality far exceeds what would have been necessary to effectuate a murder.”
While Tom is young and experienced traumatic events, his drug use contributed to them and he seems disinterested in curbing his use, he wrote. Spindle wrote:
“According to Defendant, treatment “takes up too much time.” (Doc. 38, ¶ 60). This level of apathy to his drug use, even after multiple overdoses and the murder of a loved-one, indicates that he is not interested in changing his life. Therefore, even if the brutal murder of his aunt can be partially attributed to Defendant’s drug use, the fact that he does not intend curtail his drug use indicates he will remain a public safety risk.”
On April 7, 2021, Judge William Johnson sentenced Tom to 15 years in federal prison.
Tom appeared via video for the sentencing hearing and family members appeared via Zoom and one of them addressed the court, according to minutes from the hearing.
The minutes do not say who spoke or what was said. At the hearing, Spindle argued for 17.5 years and Loonam argued for seven years.
Tom must also pay $4,077 in restitution to Erik Benally, $11,522 to State Farm and $6,000 to the New Mexico Crime Victim’s Reparation Commission.
Anthony Wagon allegedly ran down his aunt’s husband, April 26, 2017, in his car because he was allegedly mad about getting taken to the ground during a scuffle.
On May 5, 2017, the case was bound over to District Court on a charge of first-degree murder.
On June 2, 2020, District Judge Daylene Marsh ordered Wagon’s statements to a detective be suppressed. Prosecutors appealed, rescinded their appeal and asked Marsh to reconsider her decision because they did not give her the proper evidence at a prior hearing. Marsh granted the hearing but before it could happen, prosecutor Brian Deckerdismissed the case because it was “in the best interest of justice.”
The incident
After Jeremy Beard took Anthony Wagon to the ground, Wagon knew what his only recourse was, according to court records.
“You’re dead,” Wagon allegedly thought after Beard hit him. Wagon relayed that alleged thought to Farmington Detective Jason Solomon during an interview after he allegedly ran Beard over. “You’re fucking dead.”
Beard was Genella Holiday’s husband, Wagon was her nephew and Garrett Holiday was Wagon’s uncle.
Wagon told Solomon that he had been drinking with the group and Beard became upset when he thought Wagon tried to steal his beer.
“Jeremy hit Anthony a glancing blow to the back of his head and Anthony and Garrett took him to the ground and tried to calm him down,” Solomon wrote, based on his interview of Wagon. “Jeremy got back up and hit Anthony again, knocking him down.”
That was Wagon’s alleged breaking point.
“Anthony told me as soon as Jeremy hit him he said ‘you’re dead. You’re fucking dead,'” Solomon wrote. “I asked if he told Jeremy this and he said no, he said it to himself, in his mind. Anthony said Jeremy would not calm down and the fighting continued.”
Eventually, Beard ran south, down the road and away from the trailer. Garrett Holiday was chasing him, then Wagon allegedly got into his own truck and started following them both.
“He told me Garrett passed out as he was running so Anthony stopped and picked him up,” Solomon wrote. “He then drove onto Apache Street, heading west bound.”
Wagon allegedly spotted Beard on the side walk, headed west.
“He said he ‘floored it,’ drove up on the curb and hit Jeremy with the truck,” Solomon wrote.
Garrett Holiday has not been charged in connection with the death, according to court records.
Wagon told Solomon that Beard was a crack head and that it is hard to fight people high on methamphetamine.
“He said the only way to ‘take someone out’ who was on meth was ‘some other lethal weapon, which is my truck, that’s attempted murder, and that’s a hit and run,'” Solomon wrote, based on his interview of Wagon.
He then asked Wagon why he hit Beard with the truck.
“He said he wanted to paralyze or disable Jeremy but ‘if he dies, he dies, that’s on him. Not me,'” Solomon wrote. “He also said he knew Jeremy had to be hurt or dead because he hit him with the pickup.”
Wagon allegedly described seeing Beard’s back come over the hood of the truck, before he fell back to the ground and went under the truck.
“Anthony said he could then feel the pickup’s tires drove over Jeremy,” Solomon wrote. “Anthony said he wanted Jeremy to know he messed with the wrong person.”
First reports
When the crash was first reported at 9:30 p.m. it was assumed to be a fatal hit and run, Solomon wrote.
An officer spoke to witness Brandy Yniguez, who said she was driving down Apache Street when she saw a white truck pull out of the El Ray Trailer Park, right in front of her.
The truck was driving fast and swerving to the left and right, then struck a decorative wheel mounted on the side of the street.
As she turned, to go home, she saw Beard lying in the driveway to 2310 West Apache Street, then called 911.
Other officers located Wagon and Garrett Holiday, although Wagon’s apprehension is the subject of a series of suppression and dismissal motions.
On May 3, 2017, Wagon waived a preliminary hearing, prosecutors filed a criminal information charging him with first-degree murder and the case was bound over to district court.
Following the hearing, on July 31, 2019, she filed an order denying the motion to dismiss and ordering additional briefing on issues not addressed in the original briefings, specifically related to the police’s illegal seizure of Wagon.
In her order, she summarized the testimony presented:
The night of the crash, Farmington Police detectives Chris Stanton, Jesse Griggs and Chad Herrera drove to Wagon’s address on the Navajo Nation in an unmarked Ford F-150, Marsh wrote.
They spotted Wagon’s vehicle and as they approached, they saw Wagon come out of a house carrying a box. When he saw them, he allegedly ducked behind it, she wrote.
Detectives shouted at Wagon to come out from behind the vehicle and he did, with his hands up, and started talking to the detectives. None of their body cameras or audio recorders were recording, Marsh wrote.
Wagon allegedly started “making statements that implicated him in the crash” and the three detectives got him to get into their vehicle, where they drove him to the border of the Navajo Nation, where he was moved into Sgt. Travis Spruell‘s police car, she wrote.
Spruell was recording, unlike the three detectives, she wrote.
Marsh wrote that the detectives illegally seized Wagon and rejected the prosecution’s argument that the seizure was “lawful for purposes of ‘officer safety.'”
The seizure was not an arrest and “resolved almost immediately into a consensual encounter and remained that way.”
Further, it was not illegal for the detectives to transport Wagon off of the Navajo Nation, even though Wagon was intoxicated and this likely contributed to his “improvident decision.”
Although Acorn made an issue of the lack of department-mandated recordings, their lack did not “persuade this Court that it should ignore Detective Stanton’s testimony as untruthful.”
Marsh wrote that Stanton’s explanation, that he believed he turned on his body cam but it either did not record because of a bad battery or full memory card, was “not particularly satisfying, but it was a reasonable one.”
She wrote that it was not illegal for detectives to take Wagon off of the reservation, even though his initial seizure was illegal.
However, there was a “closer call” over the motion to suppress Wagon’s statement because she already concluded his seizure was illegal.
“Whether the particular evidence the State seeks to admit at trial and Defendant seeks to suppress was discovered as a result of, or was derived from, the exploitation of Defendant’s illegal initial seizure or whether the evidence may have been purged of the taint of the illegal seizure requires legal analysis that the parties have not briefed,” Marsh wrote.
She ordered the prosecution brief the issue first, with a 15-day deadline, followed by the defense’s response 15 days later.
A hearing on the issues happened on Oct. 24, 2019 in Aztec.
No suppression
On Nov. 25, 2019, Marsh ruled that Wagon’s statements to Spruell would not be suppressed at trial.
“There was sufficient attenuation to purge the taint of the illegal seizure of the Defendant, thereby, preventing the exclusion of the Defendant’s statements to Sergeant Spruell,” she wrote.
Wagon’s removal from the Navajo Nation was not illegal because Wagon went with Spruell voluntarily, she wrote.
Suppressed statement
On Jan 16, 2020, Acorn filed a motion to suppress the statements Wagon made to Solomon while being interrogated at the Farmington Police Department. He then filed an addendum on March 3, 2020.
Acorn wrote that Wagon was very drunk and was never given his Miranda warnings, and even if it were given, he was too intoxicated to waive his rights.
“The inadequacy of the advisement of rights requires the exclusion from use at trial of Defendant’s statement to Detective Solomon and whether Defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his rights has become moot,” Marsh wrote.
However, his interview with Stanton, Griggs and Herrera was acceptable because of a Miranda warning.
“Defendant’s statements to Farmington Police Detectives Stanton, Griggs, or Herrera are not excluded from use at trial in this matter to the extent Defendant would have them excluded for the failure to properly Mirandize Defendant,” Marsh wrote.
Decker filed the nolle prosequi dismissing the case on June 23, 2020, after Marsh suppressed Solomon‘s interrogation of Wagon following Beard’s death. Decker wrote it was in the “best interest of justice.”
Prosecutor Dustin O’Brien told the Farmington Daily Times that “the district court followed what is mandated by state law and the Farmington Police Department was issuing Miranda warnings consistent with law at the time.”
Police Spokeswoman Nicole Brown told the Daily Times that the case was “dismissed pending further investigation” following Marsh’s ruling and that the police department “is still pursuing and investigating the incident.”
Jeremy Beard’s father, Christian Beard, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Farmington District Court on April 24, 2020, naming Wagon, relatives Hershell Wagon and Tina Wagon and insurance companies MGA Insurance Company and Gainsco Insurance Company.
Christian Beard’s attorney, William Jaworski, wrote in the lawsuit that MGA and Gainsco insured the truck allegedly used to run over Jeremy Beard, and the three Wagons paid the insurance premiums.
When Anthony Wagon allegedly ran down Jeremy Beard, he operated the car in a “negligent and reckless manner,” Jaworski wrote.
“The car accident that killed Jeremy Beard was foreseeable,” he wrote. “The car accident was a proximate cause of Jeremy Beard’s death.”
He is asking for reasonable damages, compensatory damages for the loss of consortium, for the enhanced injury of death and punitive damages, according to the lawsuit.
