Prosecutors had sought 25 years after a Fourth of July confrontation moved from a motel to a neighborhood street.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Erica Valdez was sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty in the 2023 shooting death of her estranged husband, Joel Valdez, following months of fights over relationships outside their marriage.

The sentence closed the main murder case in Bernalillo County but left a harsh record of a marriage that prosecutors said had become volatile before the gunfire. Valdez pleaded guilty to second-degree murder with a firearm enhancement and shooting at a dwelling with a firearm enhancement. Joel Valdez was 39 when he was killed on July 4, 2023. District Attorney Sam Bregman said prosecutors asked for 25 years, but the judge imposed 15.

The case turned on a chain of confrontations that began earlier that holiday at a Motel 6 where James Sena, described by police as Erica Valdez’s boyfriend, worked as a security guard. Police said Joel Valdez went there with a woman he had been seeing and confronted Erica Valdez and Sena. According to authorities, Sena pointed a handgun at Joel Valdez, and Erica Valdez came to the doorway with a handgun while yelling at him and the woman to leave. The group separated, but investigators said the fight did not end there. Later that night, Erica Valdez went to the Andrews Avenue home she had shared with Joel Valdez. A 911 call from the house captured a woman threatening to shoot, and surveillance later showed gunfire near the home. A relative told police Erica Valdez called afterward and said, “I just sprayed the house.”

Police said the final violence came about two hours later near 98th Street, a few blocks from the house. Investigators said Erica Valdez returned to the area with another male, believed to be Sena, and another argument followed. As a car left the area, police said surveillance audio captured another volley of automatic gunfire. Family members, already alarmed because they had learned shots had been fired at the home, went looking for Joel Valdez. They found his car with a door open and saw a dark sedan believed to be Erica Valdez’s car make a U-turn and leave. His body was found in the roadway next to the car. Police said casings recovered near the house and on the road helped connect the scenes, and investigators said two different guns were used in the attacks that targeted him that night.

The couple’s troubles had been building for months, according to police, relatives and court records described by prosecutors. Relatives told investigators the Valdezes had argued repeatedly, and the disputes sharpened in the week before the killing as each accused the other of having relationships outside the marriage. Prosecutors said Erica Valdez antagonized Joel Valdez in the months before his death, called him a slur and belittled him. Court documents said the couple’s 16-year-old daughter told Joel Valdez about Erica Valdez’s other relationships just days before the Motel 6 confrontation. After that, prosecutors said, Joel Valdez began seeing other people. Erica Valdez also had been charged in April 2023 with 911 abuse after allegedly calling police 27 times to report domestic violence. The outcome of that earlier case was not detailed in the sentencing report.

Erica Valdez was arrested after the killing and initially faced more serious exposure before the case ended in a plea. The plea covered second-degree murder and shooting at a dwelling, both with firearm enhancements. Bregman said after sentencing that Valdez made more than one attempt to shoot her estranged husband. He said she first fired at him outside the home, left, then returned later before Joel Valdez was shot and killed a few streets away. Sena, 34 at the time of his arrest, was charged with conspiracy to commit a first-degree felony after detectives said he was connected to the events that night. His conspiracy charge was later dismissed after he took a 2024 plea deal for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

The police account placed several people in the path of the violence. A woman who was with Joel Valdez called 911 from the home and could be heard as Erica Valdez shouted threats, investigators said. The couple’s daughter saw her mother driving off and later found her father dead in the road, according to accounts cited by investigators. Family members also described the months before the shooting as tense and unstable. At sentencing, prosecutors presented the killing as an escalation from threats to gunfire, not a sudden act. The judge’s 15-year term was shorter than the 25 years prosecutors asked for but still sends Erica Valdez to prison for more than a decade.

Erica Valdez now faces the prison term imposed in Bernalillo County, while the murder conspiracy case against Sena is no longer pending. The next public milestone is the formal completion of post-sentencing records in the state court case.

Author note: Last updated June 15, 2026.