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Heather Rae Fernandez-Hoefer, 51, was charged with second-degree murder and tampering with evidence on April 1, 2025, more than four years after her husband, Robert Hoefer, 49, was found stabbed to death in their Farmington, New Mexico, home. The couple lived in the 700 block of South Ivie Avenue. Ages are those given by police at the time of her 2025 arrest. How long the couple had been married is not established.

Early on November 29, 2020, Fernandez-Hoefer called 911 to report an unresponsive man. Farmington police found Hoefer dead inside the house with three apparent stab wounds. An autopsy found three deep stab wounds to the chest that punctured both lungs and severed a coronary artery. He would have died within minutes, and medical examiners regarded the wounds as highly inconsistent with self-infliction.

Police said Fernandez-Hoefer's account changed during the investigation. According to the arrest affidavit, she said Hoefer stabbed himself in the computer room while she was elsewhere in the house. She said she cleaned his chest with a washcloth, the couple went to bed separately, and she later found him face-down in the bedroom.

Investigators found blood on the bed rather than where Fernandez-Hoefer said the stabbing occurred. No blood was found elsewhere in the house apart from the washcloth she said she used on Hoefer. Digital evidence showed the couple had argued early that morning over money and a previous relationship of Hoefer's. A neighbor reported hearing a man and a woman arguing between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.

No one was arrested in 2020. Farmington Police Department detectives continued collecting and reviewing evidence and worked with the district attorney's office for roughly four and a half years before charges were filed. An arrest warrant was issued, and Fernandez-Hoefer was taken into custody without incident on April 1, 2025.

The recording captures a police interview of Fernandez-Hoefer by Farmington Police Department detectives, although which sitting it shows is not identified. Her account was taken during the initial investigation on and after November 29, 2020. She was not charged then and was arrested more than four years later.

Fernandez-Hoefer was booked into the San Juan County Adult Detention Center on April 1, 2025, and released on bond on April 2, 2025. McCormick Elementary School, where she taught third grade and was still teaching five years after her husband's death, placed her on administrative leave. As of the most recent reporting, there has been no trial, plea or verdict. The charges are allegations, and she has not been convicted of anything in connection with her husband's death.

The video is an approximately 82-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.