Missing Pieces: Breaking the cycle
Brandi Sedillo knows some will have no sympathy for her, or her son.
“The holidays are hard,” Sedillo said.
She gets to speak to her oldest son, but he will not be home for Christmas for many, many years. A judge sentenced Estevan Lucero as an adult to serve 22 years in prison for the murder of Kayla Montaño earlier this year. Lucero was 15 years old when he and a group of teenagers opened fire at black SUV at a Maverik gas station in 2022.
Lucero awaits his 18th birthday to join the general prison population. While he is still technically a minor at 17, he remains isolated in prison.
A stark contrast to his mom’s office with a view.
“It’s beautiful, it’s amazing,” she said while looking out the 6th floor window of the Simms Building in downtown Albuquerque. “I feel like I’ve found my place in life, you know? My calling.”
She works at Frontline Resurrection, a faith-based nonprofit that helps women transition from incarceration, homelessness and addiction.
Sedillo’s first interview, of sorts, was inside Springer Correctional Center, where she met the executive director and founder of Frontline Resurrection, Renee Chavez-Maes.
“Brandi and I met while we were incarcerated together,” Chavez-Maes said. That was in 2016.
“We see the state of our community, we see the issues we’re dealing with,” Chavez-Maes said. “It’s one thing to sit back and watch it happen. It’s another to get engaged.”
Sedillo is now doing for others what was not done for her.
“I don’t have to hide who I am. It’s actually what empowers me to do this job,” Sedillo said.
The intersection of abused and neglected children, kids who experience trauma, and minors committing crime is well documented.
Sedillo’s case is no exception.
“I grew up basically in a broken home,” Sedillo said. “At the age of 14, I decided I didn’t want to live with either parent. I wanted to be by myself.”
She ditched school at West Mesa High School, the same school her son attended.
She was pregnant with Lucero by 17 years old, the same age he is now.
Sedillo said she never used drugs while pregnant, but addiction was never far away. Party drugs devolved into a heroin addiction. The predictable crimes followed. Her kids were exposed to a house with domestic violence, and different bouts of parents in prison.
How does a 15 year old decide to get a gun and shoot to kill?
“They don’t know what he’s been through. They don’t understand he’s had to protect himself in life,” Sedillo said. “He’s had to protect me.”
When Lucero’s older girlfriend called on him to be her protector after a drug deal gone wrong, it’s easier to understand how a dysregulated 15-year-old could make the worst decision of his life.
There is evidence Lucero is one of many.
“We’re not dealing with the root cause, which is the home life,” said Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen.
4 Investigates reviewed 198 BCSO reports where a deputy knew a juvenile was investigated for a crime in 2023.
- 15% of calls referenced a firearm.
- Most juveniles were 16-17 years old, the youngest kid investigated was an 8-year-old for an alleged battery at a daycare facility.
- The two most frequented locations: 52 reports originated from schools; 76 reports originated from peoples’ homes.
“That is a serious problem for me to hear and a number I don’t like because we know that there is something going on within that household that takes a life of crime,” Allen said. “We will see the person who’s 8 years old, even a child that’s 12, we will see them again in a couple of years.”
“They’re kids, you know, we’re the adults. We’ve created this mess,” Sedillo said.
She works with a half-dozen women every day to help them break the cycles they are stuck in. Many of them are moms with young kids.
“It’s amazing, like I can’t even describe the feeling that is to see a mom reconnected back with her baby,” Sedillo said.
Lucero will be in his mid-thirties by the time he’s eligible to be released from prison.