Rosario Soto, at left, and Augustine Soto, below

(Silver City, NM)—On October 31, 2013 at approximately 4:45 pm, deputies with the Grant County Sheriff’s Office received a phone call from the United States Marshalls' Service in reference to having a possible location on two subjects who are wanted in Arizona for violation for conditions of release on a robbery which occurred in Arizona. The wanted subjects were Rosario Soto dob 08/19/86 and Augustine Soto dob 11/17/76 who are both from Arizona.  Information that was relayed to the Sheriff’s Office revealed the possible location of these suspects to be in N. Hurley.

Upon further investigation, it was determined the location where these possible suspects were was at an address on Pop Morrison in N. Hurley. When investigators with the Sheriff’s Office and US Marshalls arrived at the location contact was attempted by them with no response. The investigators did hear subjects inside the home, one of the subjects inside the home did look out the window, who was then positively identified by one of the officers who was outside. Due to that information the Sheriff’s Office obtained a search warrant for the residence. Due to the seriousness of the charges these subjects were wanted on, the Grant County Sheriff’s Office Special Response Team was activated along with the assistance of the Silver City Police Department, Luna County Sheriff’s Office and Bayard Police Department. Several attempts were made to communicate with the suspects inside the home. A short time later, a Lieutenant with the Sheriff’s Office did speak to Augustine Soto on the phone and was able to get them to surrender without incident. Both suspects were taken into custody.

Upon executing the search warrant deputies were able to recover several firearms, money and drugs. Grant County Sheriff Raul Villanueva is really grateful things turned out the way they did. It could have really been a bad outcome, but the professionalism used by the investigator prevented anything from happening.