On December 10, police charged a 19-year-old man from Rio Rancho, New Mexico with the murder of his father on December 9.
Rio Rancho police charged Zane Skinner with one open count of murder and another count of tampering with evidence. They arrested the teen and booked him into a detention center in Sandoval County.
According to Lt. Jacquelyn Reedy, dispatchers from the Rio Rancho Police Department were called on Saturday, December 10 by Zane Skinner, reporting a homicide at his home.
Officers quickly rushed to the North Pole Loop residence, where they found Michael Skinner, Zane’s dad, deceased from what looked like a gunshot wound.
A criminal complaint indicates that Michael Skinner died from two gunshot wounds to his head. Although the 19-year-old initially denied having anything to do with his father’s death, he eventually confessed to investigators that he shot his father two times with a gun and then stabbed him multiple times.
According to the complaint, Skinner told first responders that he waited a whole day to call 911 because he did not know how to handle his father’s corpse or what to do with it.
Police found the body in a bathtub in his bedroom.
Police arrested the teenager and took him to the station for an interview. He agreed to give investigators a statement of what happened and admitted to killing his father.
Skinner told stunned detectives that he woke up early on Friday morning at around 5 am, went to the garage, retrieved a .45-caliber handgun, and proceeded to his father’s room. He woke his father up and asked him if he was involved in animal abuse.
The teen said he shot his father twice in the head, dragged his dead body from the bed to the bathtub, went and got a knife, and stabbed the dead man’s body more than five times.
Responding officers said that the bedroom and the bathroom appeared as if somebody had tried to clean up the rooms.
Neighbors said that on the night that the man was murdered, they heard a loud bang and the garage door kept opening and closing.
About a month earlier, police had arrested the younger Skinner and charged him with criminal trespassing after he tried to break into his neighbor’s home. Police responded to a 911 call at the residence on November 15 and found Skinner standing outside the house. He admitted to officers that he had tried to enter the home.
The neighbor told officers that he had tried to enter the home while she was inside, and she refused to let him in. Skinner told her he wanted to look around the house, and she warned him to leave before law enforcement arrived.
Skinner told the arresting police officer that he had smoked marijuana, and the officer also noted that the teen displayed “abnormal behavior.” Skinner tried to flee the scene and even threatened to hit the officer with a skateboard.
In addition to the criminal trespass charges, police charged him with assaulting an officer and resisting arrest. He was released and is now facing murder charges.
His 49-year-old father had just celebrated his birthday weeks before the gruesome murder.
