How Sheriff Billy Merrifield died from a fentanyl overdose is still a mystery to New Mexico State Police investigators, although the details of his finals hours have become a little clearer. It’s also clear who the mystery woman is that was with him that night and who the friend is that called 911.
Those details are contained in the 106 pages of supplemental reports, scene photos, driver’s license photos and interview summaries State Police released in response to a records request.
Records from the cellphones of the man who found Merrifield dead, Randy Sandoval, and the woman, Cinthia Corrales Gonzalez, matched up with the initial accounts, 911 calls and interviews they gave to State Police investigators.
The latest date on the documents provided by State Police is June 2, documenting the April 25 extraction attempts of multiple cell phones.
While the last two people to see Merrifield alive gave agents access to their cellphones, Merrifield’s phones were locked and no one knew the pass code to access them.
Nothing in Gonzalez’s interviews indicate how or when Merrifield ingested the synthetic opioid fentanyl, although she did say he was drinking. He died from an overdose of alcohol and fentanyl.
No clear answers
The account of Merrifield’s last day comes from two people: Gonzalez, his alleged romantic interest, and Sandoval. Agent Ezequiel Esquivel Mata interviewed Gonzalez in Spanish, he wrote in a supplemental report.
She told him in an interview in the afternoon following Merrifield’s death, that he picked her up around 9 p.m., April 19, in Española. He asked her if she knew the area and she said in her eight months in New Mexico, she hadn’t explored it. As they went for a drive, Merrifield asked if she wanted to go out for dinner or drinks, and she demurred to him. She said they mostly communicated through a translator app on his phone because Merrifield did not speak fluent Spanish and she did not speak English, Esquivel Mata wrote.
Merrifield took her to Abiquiú Lake, which she had never visited, and gave her a can of a Smirnoff drink while he drank “Crown Apple that he was mixing into a Sprite bottle,” he wrote.
“Billy offered Cinthia a drink from his Sprite bottle, and she described that it was too strong for her so she kept to her Smirnoff can. They visited the lake for a while and Billy asked Cinthia if she wanted to go see his home,” Esquivel Mata wrote.
The pair drank, had sex and were hanging out alone. Eventually, she asked Merrifield if he was OK to take her back to Española and he didn’t appear to be drunk, wasn’t stumbling or having difficulty walking, he wrote.
“Shortly after leaving Billy swerved off the road and struck a road sign which scared her,” Esquivel Mata wrote. “Cinthia was unsure if Billy had struck the sign on purpose, Cinthia began to cry and asked Billy what was going on and to stop. Billy did not respond to Cinthia, so she grabbed the steering wheel to correct the vehicle back onto the correct lane of travel.”
Merrifield took his foot off the gas and she was able to put the vehicle in park. She called Sandoval, whom she added to her phone two weeks prior when she met him and Merrifield at the bar at the Ohkay Casino. She told him Merrifield was snoring and when she got him to wake up, he would say, “don’t worry baby,” Esquivel Mata wrote.
When Sandoval arrived, he asked Gonzalez to drive Merrifield’s patrol vehicle back to his house. Afraid if she tried to get the unconscious Merrifield out of the driver’s seat, she wouldn’t be able to get him back in, she got on his lap, pushed the seat all the way back, and drove back to his house, Esquivel Mata wrote.
Both were afraid of Merrifield’s dog, in his house, and left him in his patrol vehicle after he mumbled he would go inside, he wrote.
In a follow-up interview on May 2, Gonzalez told investigators that she “blamed herself for not calling 911 to help Billy,” Esquivel Mata wrote.
“Cinthia was asked why she called Randy and not 911, Cinthia felt that due to Billy being the Sheriff she feared he would get in trouble as he had been drinking alcohol and driving,” Esquivel Mata wrote.
In his interview, Sandoval told investigators he didn’t know where Merrifield crashed into the sign, but they drove around until they found it, 50 yards from his driveway, Agent Mario Villanueva wrote in a supplemental report.
Merrifield’s vehicle’s recorder showed no record of “impact force” on the morning of April 20.
Sandoval told investigators that after he went to Merrifield’s house, he drove Gonzalez to Española, went home, then woke up at 10 a.m. and started calling Merrifield, before he drove to his house and found him reclined in his vehicle, the same place he was when he left him earlier that morning, Villanueva wrote.
He said 911 dispatchers told him to take Merrifield out of the vehicle and perform CPR and eventually he realized Merrifield was dead, so he stopped and waited for medics and deputies to arrive, he wrote.
Forensic phone extractions showed numerous photos taken by Gonzalez, including photos of Merrifield’s unit with the emergency lights on; Gonzalez sitting in the unit wearing Merrifield’s RASO ball cap; and photos of what appear to be Merrifield sleeping in the driver’s seat of his unit, according to a supplemental report by Agent Mario Villanueva.
The first photo Gonzalez took on April 20 is of her sitting in the passenger seat of Merrifield’s unit with the driver’s door open, but no one in the driver’s seat; it was taken at 2:48 a.m. The next series of photos shows the outside of the unit with the emergency lights on, taken at 3:02 a.m. She then took photos of Merrifield sleeping in the driver’s seat at 3:17 a.m.
Surveillance footage
Surveillance footage from the Abiquiú Lake visitors center showed a car, possibly with a light bar, passing in front of the building at 2:54 a.m. April 20. This was likely Merrifield’s vehicle, Villanueva wrote.
Flock cameras in Española showed Merrifield’s personal vehicle travel south on U.S. 84/285 at 8:43 p.m. on April 19; travel west on N.M. Highway 76 near the intersection of N.M. Highway 106 at 9:34 p.m. and west on Fairview Lane near the intersection with Riverside Drive at 9:39 p.m.