4 hours Ago
An Albuquerque man charged in the methamphetamine exposure death of one of his twin 6-month-old girls was captured recently on a months-old outstanding warrant and will remain behind bars. Lawrence Gabaldon, 32, faces one count each of child abuse and reckless child abuse resulting in death. On Monday, a Second Judicial District Court judge granted a pretrial detention motion for Gabaldon, according to court records, and he's being held with no bond in the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center.
A warrant for Gabaldon's arrest was issued in December but wasn't served until Oct. 17. Gloria Tesillo, the girl's mother, was found guilty by a jury of child abuse and reckless abuse of a child resulting in death in May.
She has a sentencing hearing scheduled for early November. Police wrote in a criminal complaint that surveillance footage showed a man identified by a security guard as Gabaldon run to the lobby of a Days Inn near the Big I interchange in Albuquerque around 11:20 a.m.
on July 16, 2023. He frantically asked for Tesillo. "The baby, she's purple," he shouted, according to the affidavit.
Police were flagged down shortly afterward and were told the 6-month-old may be dead inside the room. An officer found the girl unconscious and not breathing on a bed in the room; efforts by him and Albuquerque Fire Rescue to revive her failed. An autopsy showed the 6-month-old's cause of death was the "toxic effects of methamphetamine.
" Cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamines, benzodiazepines and cannabis were later found in a hair test conducted on the dead girl's twin. According to the affidavit, Tesillo originally lied about Gabaldon being the one responsible for watching the children out of fear of retaliation from him, but later said in a jail call obtained by police it was him. Gabaldon told police he was on pills while he was with the girls but then "crashed out.
" When he woke, the girl was "hard and cold." Throughout the motel room, police could see a straw pipe, foil with burnt residue, a digital scale, Suboxone strips, narcotics pill bottles and a black bag filled with a "white powdery substance," the complaint says. The room smelled like chemicals, and a black, tar-like residue covered the floor, police said.
.
