Left: Zachary Babitz (Las Cruces Police Department). Right: Gordon Wilson (Obituary).
A man who was released from a New Mexico prison months before he went on a dayslong crime spree that included killing an 83-year-old man in a Best Buy parking lot and robbing a bank and an Arby's at gunpoint is headed to prison.
Zachary Ryan Babitz, 40, agreed to a plea deal that includes a sentence of life in prison after he pleaded guilty to a slew of charges relating to the death of Gordon Wilson, including carjacking resulting in death, bank robbery and carrying a firearm during a crime causing death, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Mexico. Babitz was facing state charges, but the feds took the case over and put the death penalty on the table. As part of the plea, prosecutors dropped their pursuit of the ultimate punishment.
As Law&Crime previously reported, it all began around 2 p.m. on July 31, 2024, when Babitz — still wearing his GPS ankle monitor — robbed a Wells Fargo in Albuquerque, according to police. Babitz then cut off his ankle monitor and headed to Santa Fe where he robbed and shot Wilson around 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 6, 2024, in the parking lot of a Best Buy at 3533 Zafarano Dr.
Babitz stole Wilson's car and drove away, police said.
Two days later, Santa Fe cops identified Babitz as the suspect and issued an arrest warrant for murder, robbery and felon in possession of a firearm. But Babitz's alleged crime spree continued. He and a woman walked into an Arby's in Las Cruces around 6:30 p.m. Aug. 10, 2024, where he pointed a gun at an employee and demanded money. After running away, the couple allegedly forced a woman out of her vehicle at gunpoint. They sped away, but quickly crashed and ran, according to police.
Cops arrested Babitz, but the woman escaped. It's unclear what happened to her.
After police in Santa Fe identified Babitz as the suspect in Wilson's death, Albuquerque cops tied him to the Wells Fargo Bank robbery. They went to Babitz's home, where they found the vehicle that Babitz allegedly used to rob the bank.
According to the New Mexico Department of Corrections, Babitz was sentenced in 2019 to 23 years in prison for robbery and receiving or transferring stolen motor vehicles. However, a judge suspended all but 10 years of the prison term and gave him credit for the 173 days he already served. He also earned 30 days of good-time credit per month, which led to his release from prison on March 12, 2024, with two years of parole followed by five years probation, the NMDOC said.
"This is a gentleman who never should have been out, he shouldn't be on the streets right now. He was sentenced to what I understand to be 20 years. He was put on parole, released early. He cut off his ankle monitor and immediately began wreaking havoc," Santa Fe Police Chief Paul Joye told reporters.
Santa Fe Police Capt. Thomas Grundler said it's unclear why Babitz targeted Wilson.
"Even though the data shows in most categories of violent crime being down, the cold and calculated manner in which this occurred in broad daylight, in a public place," Grundler said. "It shocks the conscience and as such, it causes the citizens to fear a little bit more."
Wilson worked as an investment and mutual fund manager before retiring and working with a nonprofit archaeology organization for decades, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
Wilson wrote in an essay that he developed his passion for archaeology in grade school when he learned about Native Americans and ancient Greece and Rome. Though his career was in finance he worked on archaeological sites in his spare time. He found that finance and archaeology were often intertwined.
"Archaeology is, simply put, the physical record of thousands of economic and social experiments, from the size of a single pueblo to empires. And, we get to see if the experiment thrived or failed," he wrote.
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