grant@sfreporter.com
Estevan Montoya speaks with a paralegal on the defense team during his trial. He's been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Fedonta "JB" White.
The trial for Estevan Montoya, accused of first-degree murder in the shooting death of local basketball star Fedonta “JB” White, opened in a Santa Fe courtroom on Wednesday when the jury heard two competing narratives about who acted as the aggressor the night of a high school party in Chupadero.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers agree that the gathering, made up of minors and young adults drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis, ended in tragedy. But what prompted it will be for jurors to decide after what’s expected to be a two-week trial before First Judicial District Court Judge T. Glenn Ellington.
In opening statements, prosecutors said Montoya, who was 16 at the time, and his friends showed up to the house uninvited in August of 2020, stirring up trouble and attempting to take control of the party. The defense team called that idea a red herring—instead, everyone was invited and Montoya was attempting to deescalate a drunken quarrel when he was attacked.
Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Padgett Macias set the scene for the jury. Late into the evening on the night of the shooting, two of Montoya’s friends were wrapped up in an argument on the porch outside the home. White, standing off to the side, told the people around to “shut that goofy kid up,” Padgett Macias said.
“For Estevan, JB’s comment…was all it took,” she said. “It was all that Estevan needed; that was his trigger.”
Montoya challenged White, the prosecutor said. He told him: “You don’t want this smoke,” then backpedaled, inviting White to a fight. He wasn’t running away, Padgett Macias said, and White didn’t back down, either.
The two squared up, each throwing but not landing punches. In one motion, Montoya turned to face White, pulled out a black firearm and shot White in the chest. As the party froze in shock, Montoya took off running down the driveway and fired a second shot 15 seconds later.
The prosecution pointed out two sets of photos of Montoya—one taken on the morning of the shooting and the other five days later—showed that he hadn’t been injured.
Witnesses also testified they saw Montoya, noticeably upset, sitting by himself before the shooting.
“The defendant’s decision and his state of mind did not start and end in the 18 seconds it took to kill a dream and kill JB. His decision and his intent unfolded over the course of hours,” Padgett Macias argued.
The defense tells a different version.
Attorney Dan Marlowe told the jury “everybody in Santa Fe was invited” to the party, since word of it was spreading on social media, and quickly disputed the idea that anyone cared when Montoya and his friends arrived.
“If the facts aren’t on your side, you attack the victim,” Marlowe says. “Right now, in this trial, [Montoya] is the victim. They’re trying to show that this guy is a ruthless, really bad guy and it doesn’t turn out to be that way at all.”
Marlowe argued that his client was attempting to calm down his friend, who was in the confrontation, and told White to leave him alone.
“He comes up and basically tells JB, ‘Don’t get involved in this thing,’ and JB doesn’t like it,” Marlowe said. “Here’s Estevan coming over trying to stop the fight, trying to stop the confrontation.”
White then took off his glasses, tucked his chains inside his shirt, pulled up his pants and went after Montoya. An 18-year-old, soon-to-be member of the University of New Mexico basketball team, White’s frame was much larger than Montoya’s, so the younger boy “ran for his life,” Marlowe said.
“Who’s going to win that fight?” he asked.
The bullet that hit White went through his chest, his right lung and into the eighth vertebrae. While prosecutors argue Montoya turned and shot directly at White, Marlowe says the pathology report will show that’s “impossible.”
“What that shows you is that JB was chasing Estevan and Estevan took that gun, pulled it out of his left waist, racked it and shot around his shoulder…He didn’t know he hit JB and he certainly didn’t know he killed JB, because JB wasn’t dead,” Marlowe said.
In the first public accounts from witnesses who were at the party, a girl who was taking a video at the time of the shooting said as soon as the gun went off, the crowd of people took off running. The video, which showed a group of teens arguing on the porch, ended just after the sound of the gun firing and the witness letting out a scream. At first she said she accidentally posted the video to SnapChat while she was running away.
When asked if there was another reason why she posted it, she said: “I didn’t know if we were going to make it out alive.”
