2 Dona Ana Detectives Investigating Triple Murder Case Have Been Fired

A pair of detectives working the Mesilla Hills triple murder case for the Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Office have been fired.

Cold case investigators Ricky Madrid and Ralph Rios told ABC-7 they were fired on Tuesday morning without explanation.

They had been working on the Mesilla Hills triple murder case for a couple of months and said they were following a number of leads.

Back in April, the bodies of Helga and Gilles Delise and Peter Wheit were found at the Delise’s home near Mesilla. All three died of gunshot wounds.

So far there have been no arrests made in the case.

Will Walker, the attorney for the Delisles and Wheit, said the firing of the two detectives concerns him.

“Oh, I think it’s a terribly bad move,” Walker said. “I think you had two people who had devoted all this time, or at least the majority of their time, to this matter and now we are back to the situation before where this very important case, which is also a very difficult case, is competing with a lot of other cases for the attention of detectives. And I don’t think that’s adequate.”

ABC-7 made several requests for an interview with Sheriff Todd Garrison, who fired Rios and Madrid, but have yet to hear back from him.

But Jess Williams, spokesman for Dona Ana County, did comment, saying, “This is a matter of performance and it’s a matter of a personnel issue.”

Williams offered little more except to say that he does not believe this is a setback in the Mesilla Hills triple murder case.

“Clearly, this is not a setback,” Williams said. “The five original investigators are still on this case, they are still processing evidence, the evidence is being tested … Every piece of evidence has been tested at the state level. Some is now at the local level.”