Two charged with tampering in Dakota Lunceford murder investigation

LAS CRUCES - A Las Cruces woman and her boyfriend have been arrested in the homicide investigation of an 18-year-old Alamogordo man whose body was found earlier this month in Mesilla, but no murder charges have been filed, court records show.

Bryanna Terry, 19, was arrested Wednesday by Doña Ana County sheriff's detectives and charged with tampering with evidence, according to a criminal complaint.

Terry has been identified as the person who last spoke with Dakota Lunceford before his death, and was named as a person of interest in the case last week.

Lunceford's body was discovered by a farmer off Glass Road in Mesilla on Aug. 4. Officials have not said how Lunceford was killed or how long he had been dead when he was found.

Also on Wednesday, detectives arrested Terry's boyfriend, Justin Bullock, 22, of Alamogordo, and charged him with tampering with evidence and resisting arrest, according to a separate criminal complaint.

Bullock and Terry are both being held without bond at the Doña Ana County Detention Center, pending pretrial detention hearings, which have yet to be scheduled. They were arraigned Wednesday afternoon in Doña Ana County Magistrate Court.

Prosecutors have filed motions seeking to keep them jailed without bond until trial.

The two were arrested at a home in the 5000 block of Kensington Way after detectives attempted to carry out a warrant to search Terry and Lunceford's cellphones.

When Terry learned detectives were searching for her phone, she claimed she no longer had it, saying it broke a few a days earlier, according a detective's affidavit.

It is unclear from the court records if detectives believed Terry had been in possession of Lunceford's cellphone.

Later, detectives and officers with the Las Cruces Police Department found Bullock hiding in the insulation space in the home's attic space, the affidavit stated. When he was discovered, Bullock resisted arrest and did not comply with commands from an LCPD officer, the affidavit alleged.

He was found in possession of a ZTE cellphone in a pink case that was later determined to be Terry's phone — the one she claimed she no longer had — according to the affidavit. The battery had been taken out of the phone, the affidavit stated, and the back side had been removed.

The affidavit alleged that Terry "intentionally lied to detectives by stating the phone was broken a few days prior to the service of the warrant" and "knew that (Bullock) was hiding in the attic and continued to deny knowing his whereabouts."

It also alleged that Bullock had tampered with evidence "by taking apart the phone" while hiding in the attic.

No other charges have been filed against Terry and Bullock.

Carlos Andres López can be reached 575-541-5453, carlopez@lcsun-news.com or @carlopez_los on Twitter.