Inset: Vincent Galvan (Roosevelt County Sheriff”s Office). Background: The state line with New Mexico near where Galvan was arrested in Farwell, Texas. (Google Maps).
A New Mexico woman was working to put a man behind bars — but he became aware of those efforts and killed her, according to law enforcement in the Land of Enchantment.
Vincent Galvan, 38, stands accused of one count each of murder in the first degree, tampering with evidence, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, and felon in possession of a firearm, the Roosevelt County Sheriff’s Office says.
On May 12, deputies found the decomposing body of 38-year-old Ricki L. White inside an SUV parked on an abandoned property on South Roosevelt Road 6, a few miles across the border with Texas.
The next day, the sheriff’s office had Galvan and another woman on its radar — asking the public for help in locating them.
On May 14, Galvan was arrested by local police after crossing into nearby Farwell, a tiny town located in the Texas Panhandle.
The defendant’s arrest, however, came almost by chance, according to court documents obtained by The Eastern New Mexico News.
Whereas the victim’s purported efforts to have Galvan arrested failed, another citizen stepped up in another case entirely and succeeded.
The day of the defendant’s arrest, a business owner in Clovis, New Mexico, received a phone call from an employee, according to the newspaper. That employee told their boss they would not be able to make it into work because their pickup truck had been stolen.
So, the business owner posted on social media about the stolen truck and began driving around town looking for it — eventually spotting the wayward vehicle on Mabry Drive and following it. But soon enough, the driver of the truck made the tail and fired multiple shots at the sleuthing business owner, the newspaper reported.
The business owner lost the pursuit on residential streets but noticed the truck was Texas-bound, so he notified police in Clovis and Farwell.
Police in Farwell found the truck abandoned at a local restaurant — and although the stolen vehicle situation was not yet formally connected to the homicide investigation in Roosevelt County, an officer mentioned the possibility. Soon enough, the stories converged as the police chief recalled that White sometimes stayed in Farwell with a friend.
Farwell Police Chief Larry Kelsay then determined Galvan was with White’s friend and on the way to Clovis, according to the newspaper. The police chief got that friend on the phone and asked him to head back to Texas. Then, police initiated a traffic stop.
The man — apparently a friend to both Galvan and White — got out of his truck as police requested, but the defendant allegedly quickly took control of the vehicle and sped away. A high-speed chase ensued.
But it was not long. After roughly one minute, the defendant allegedly crashed his friend’s truck and briefly tried to escape on foot, but was taken into custody and then connected to the earlier pickup theft by surveillance footage, according to law enforcement.
White was last seen alive on May 4 at around 7:30 p.m., according to law enforcement. Investigators believe she was shot and killed sometime between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. on May 5. A cellphone said to have been loaned to Galvan by another woman was tracked to the scene of the crime around that time period, police said.
Galvan remains detained in the Farwell jail and will be extradited back to New Mexico after the Texas case against him is adjudicated.
In the friend’s pickup, police also recovered a 9 mm pistol, according to an affidavit for an arrest warrant obtained by The Eastern New Mexico News. Police allege the gun had blood on the frame and the caliber matched that of a bullet recovered from White’s body.
As the investigation into White’s murder progressed, authorities found “a folder with discovery proving…prior crimes” inside the SUV where the woman had been discovered. Investigators now believe Galvan killed White because she was compiling evidence to use against him — and noted several prior domestic disputes between the couple that were reported to law enforcement.
In one instance, the couple is said to have pointed guns at one another. Some of those disputes, however, were not reported, police said.
As it turned out, Galvan confessed to friends that he killed White — his on-again, off-again girlfriend — because she “had been threatening him,” according to the affidavit. Then, in a jailhouse phone call to his mother, Galvan repeated an iteration of that story, saying he knew a friend was setting him up to be caught by police, authorities allege.
Galvan also told his mother that he had considered getting out of the vehicle his friend was driving before police began pursuing them on the day he was caught, but then told her “a part of me…felt I needed to be caught for this stuff,” according to the affidavit.
