The suspect later lay beside his wounded brother and admitted firing the rifle, according to police.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A 55-year-old man is charged with murder after police said he shot his brother during an argument at a northeast Albuquerque apartment on Feb. 26, then lay next to him outside as officers arrived at the scene.

Authorities say the case quickly moved from an emergency shooting call to a homicide investigation with a witness statement, a family account and physical evidence gathered through a search warrant. Benjamin Chess is accused in the death of his brother, Adam Chess, 54, at an apartment on Palo Verde Drive NE, where police say the brothers had a history of fighting when they were under the same roof.

The reported chain of events began shortly before 7 p.m. when a neighbor called 911 after Adam Chess came out of the apartment and said his brother had shot him. Officers were dispatched at about 6:55 p.m. and arrived to find Adam outside the apartment complex, badly wounded. Police said Benjamin Chess was on the ground next to him. Adam was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators later said Benjamin admitted firing the shot. In his interview with detectives, police said, Benjamin described being overwhelmed after his brother returned to the apartment and pounded on the door. He said he remembered going down the hallway and shooting Adam with a rifle, but claimed he could not clearly recall what happened immediately before or after the shot.

Investigators said the evidence they collected helped shape the case almost immediately. A neighbor told police that while still on the phone with 911, he saw Benjamin Chess take a trash bag from the apartment and place it in an outside receptacle. After getting a search warrant, detectives said they found a single .243-caliber shell casing inside that bag. Officers also recovered a .243-caliber bolt-action rifle from a laundry basket in the hallway of the apartment. Police said the weapon appeared to have been cycled, which they described as consistent with a casing being removed. That sequence became central to the tampering allegation filed along with the open count of murder. Investigators have not publicly described any forensic testing results, including ballistics or fingerprint findings, and court records cited in early reports did not list a future hearing date.

The family setting also became part of the police account. Detectives said the brothers were at their aunt’s apartment in the Northeast Heights area, near Candelaria Road and Tramway Boulevard. The aunt told officers that Benjamin Chess had been staying with her and that Adam would sometimes come over to stay. When that happened, she said, the men often fought. On the night of the shooting, police said, she heard the brothers arguing and saw Adam charge at Benjamin. She told investigators she did not see either man holding a weapon at that point. She went inside, then heard what she described as a loud bang. After that, she told police, she saw Benjamin place a brown rifle into a laundry basket in the hallway. Benjamin later told detectives that Adam had a daily drinking problem and a habit of starting confrontations, describing that behavior as something that was “slowly killing us all.”

The charges leave important questions unsettled. An open count of murder in New Mexico allows prosecutors to move forward while they sort out the exact theory of homicide, including whether they will argue willful and deliberate murder, felony murder or depraved-mind murder. Benjamin Chess was booked into the Metro Detention Center and prosecutors sought to keep him held without bond, according to early reports that cited court records. It was not clear in those reports whether he had entered a plea or retained a lawyer. Police have not publicly detailed whether anyone else was inside the apartment at the moment of the shot, how long Adam survived after leaving the unit, or whether detectives found any evidence supporting a claim of self-defense. Those issues are likely to be tested as the case moves through the Bernalillo County courts.

Outside the apartment, the scene carried the flat, abrupt details common in family homicide cases. A man who had just called for help was reporting what he said he saw in real time. A relative inside the home was describing an argument that, in her account, rose quickly and ended with a single gunshot. Officers arriving at the complex found both brothers down on the ground, one mortally wounded and the other still beside him. The neighborhood itself was not described as an active threat area after the arrest, and reports said roads were not shut down during the investigation. The details left by witnesses and detectives drew a picture of a brief but violent encounter inside a shared family space.

Benjamin Chess remains the defendant in a homicide case centered on the Feb. 26 shooting, with murder and evidence-tampering allegations filed and further court action expected once hearings are scheduled.

Author note: Last updated March 31, 2026.