Suspected killer wants to attend
a new church

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — A man who has confessed — several times — to killing a Gallup teenager was back in district court Friday asking for permission to go to a different church.

Joseph Evans, who has been under house arrest for almost a year while the New Mexico Supreme Court hears an appeal dealing with evidence in the case, told District Court Judge Robert Aragon that he doesn’t feel welcome at his present church and instead wants to be allowed to attend services at the Solid Rock Cafe and the Door.

Mike Calligan, the deputy chief prosecutor for the McKinley County District Attorney’s Office, said his office has no problem with Evans being allowed to go to the Solid Rock Cafe but objected to the Door since a family member of the victim goes there.

Evans was charged in 2005 with the September 2005 slaying of Felizia Hope Penaloza, a 16-year-old Gallup High School student, whose body was found bound and lying in 2 inches of water underneath a bridge northwest of Gallup.

Investigators believe she was killed elsewhere, probably a week or more before she was found on Sept. 12, and her body was dumped in the ditch. Evans was arrested shortly a few days after the body was found, along with Kenneth Durante.

Durante stayed in jail for more than 16 months waiting trial and was eventually released when prosecutors said they could not tie him to any of the evidence that was collected at the scene. He was arrested after Evans confessed to the killing and implicated Durante.

The case against Evans hit a snag in the spring of 2007 when Aragon ruled that there was not probable cause for the state police to search for evidence in Evan’s home and he threw out the evidence that was gathered. The DA’s office has filed an appeal and while this appeal is being considered, Evans is out under house arrest, wearing a monitoring bracelet on his ankle and restricted to where he can go.

One of the places he is allowed to go is to church and Aragon Friday agreed to allow him to attend services at either church.

This doesn’t sit well with the Penaloza family.
Gonzalo Penaloza, father of the victim, said he couldn’t understand why the judge agreed to allow “a confessed killer” to go to The Door where another of his other daughters attends services.

The daughter has been attending church there for the past two or three weeks, he said. “She’s seeking direction in her life and felt this was a place where she could go to get it.

Now she will have to go someplace else because she won’t want to go to the same place that her sister’s killer goes to.”

He said he still can’t understand why it has taken the courts so long to hear the case against Evans. “He should be in jail, not walking the streets,” he said.

Calligan said he has no idea how much longer it will take before the Supreme Court issues its ruling but until that happens Evans will continued to be monitored and have his travel restricted.