ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. \u2014 Police officers found Tony Peralta earlier this month sitting on a curb not far from the convenience store in a small southeastern New Mexico community where he borrowed a cellphone \u2014 so he could call 911 and confess to killing his landlord 15 years earlier.
Sweating and taking puffs from his cigarette, he told them he\u2019s tired of covering it up, tired of living with the lie and tired of being overwhelmed by guilt. He agreed to take the officers to where he buried the body before standing up and volunteering to be cuffed.
Police in Roswell released the 911 recording and nearly an hour of officer body camera video in response to a records request filed by The Associated Press. The May 1 footage shows Peralta repeatedly thanking the officers for picking him up.
\u201cI confess, man. I confess. I don\u2019t want to live life anymore without confessing,\u201d he said while sitting in an interview room at police headquarters.
The uniformed officers and detectives who talked with Peralta peppered him with questions about when the killing happened, how he did it and why. Peralta kept answering that he didn\u2019t know or didn\u2019t remember, acknowledging that he had been drinking \u201ca lot\u201d the day he called 911.
Peralta, 37, was arraigned Tuesday on a charge of first-degree murder but did not attend the hearing. He pleaded not guilty to the charge through his public defender, Ray Conley, who declined to comment after the hearing. Conley has said he will ensure Peralta\u2019s due process is respected as the case moves through court.
A judge on Tuesday also set Peralta\u2019s trial for October but said that date could change.
At times, the authorities had asked if Peralta was making up the story and leading them on a goose chase since he wasn\u2019t providing many details, other than saying he had killed someone a long time ago.
\u201cThere\u2019s a dead body in there, dude!\u201d he told one officer while in the back of a patrol car parked in front of the home where he once was a tenant of 69-year-old William Blodgett. Peralta said he\u2019d feel better once the body was found.
Investigators said they obtained a search warrant and found a boot, bones and dentures after removing plywood floorboards from a detached room on the side of the house.
The dentures were compared with Blodgett\u2019s dental records \u2014 obtained in early 2009 after he was reported missing \u2014 and that led to a positive identification, according to police.
A tearful Peralta told police he didn\u2019t know why he had killed Blodgett. At one point, police video shows him putting his head down onto a table during an interview and sobbing.
Peralta told police he decided to come forward because \u201chis heart hurts\u201d and that he thought about it every day. He told an officer that Blodgett was a good man and that he took his life for no reason while high on methamphetamine.
\u201cI don\u2019t have an excuse,\u201d he told police. \u201cA lot of people have an excuse. I don\u2019t have one.\u201d
Blodgett\u2019s girlfriend and family had not seen him since late December 2008. She told police that Peralta, who was considered a suspect by police early on, allegedly had some sort or argument or fight with Blodgett, who had tried to evict him.
Authorities at the time had talked to Blodgett\u2019s family, friends and neighbors and visited the home the two men shared, which appeared to have been abandoned with personal belongings still in place. Police found no immediate signs of foul play and Blodgett\u2019s vehicle was still there, according to the original missing person report.
Detectives would periodically drive by the house but never spotted anyone. They also brought a dog trained to sniff for bodies to the property but found nothing.
Police said the case went cold after investigators exhausted all leads until Peralta\u2019s 911 call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n