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Armando Zamora was sentenced to 29 years on March 29, 2024, after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and two counts of tampering with evidence in the death of his wife, Erica Zamora, in Grant County, New Mexico.

Armando and Erica Zamora lived in the Silver City area, and Armando was from the community of Santa Clara. Erica was 39. Armando was 35 when he was arrested in October 2021 and 38 when sentenced. He was on probation for a 2019 conviction for criminal sexual contact of a minor under 13 and was required to wear a GPS ankle monitor. He had filed for divorce in June 2021, and the case was still pending.

On the morning of Sunday, September 26, 2021, the couple drove into the forest to cut firewood. Armando later told investigators that they argued on the drive, Erica struck him at the wood cutting site, and he beat her to death there with an axe. Her body was left in the forest, and she was not seen or heard from again. New Mexico State Police described the site as forest land outside Silver City within the Gila National Forest. The Sixth Judicial District Attorney's Office placed it on North Star Mesa near Mimbres.

New Mexico State Police in Silver City took a missing person report on Friday, October 1, 2021. Armando told investigators he had last seen Erica at about 7:30 in the morning on September 28, when he said he dropped her off at her residence. Investigators obtained coordinates from his ankle monitor, which placed him at the forest site and did not fit his account. A New Mexico State Police sergeant searched the area and found Erica's body. The Office of the Medical Investigator pronounced her dead, and she was positively identified.

New Mexico State Police investigators interviewed Armando on October 3, 2021. He initially described where he had been and said he dropped his wife off two days after the wood cutting trip. When investigators confronted him with the ankle monitor data, he admitted that he beat Erica to death with an axe and said they had argued and fought before he killed her. He was charged with an open count of murder and booked into the Grant County Detention Center.

Under a plea agreement, Armando pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and two counts of tampering with evidence, and admitted his identity for purposes of a habitual offender enhancement. The date the plea was entered is not established. District Judge Tom Stewart imposed the 29-year sentence, comprising 20 years on the murder count, the 15 year basic sentence increased by one third for aggravating circumstances, a 3 year habitual offender enhancement, and the terms imposed on the two tampering counts. District Attorney Michael R. Renteria called it a classic case of second degree murder, where the defendant killed in the heat of passion.

The video is an approximately 71-minute police interview-room recording. It presents the interview itself and opens with a short narrated introduction naming the people involved.

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Part 2 of 2 of the recording described above.