Grant Crawford
Estevan Montoya reacts to his first-degree murder conviction after the jury is dismissed from the courtroom on Tuesday.
A Santa Fe County jury has found Estevan Montoya guilty of first-degree murder, ending a two-week trial for Montoya, who was 16 when he shot and killed local basketball standout Fedonta “JB” White at a high school party in August of 2020.
After hearing testimony from dozens of witnesses, including partygoers who saw Montoya fire the gun, investigators and pathology experts, the jury spent roughly four hours on Tuesday deliberating. The panel convicted Montoya on all four charges—first-degree murder, tampering with evidence, unlawful carrying of a handgun by a person under age 19 and negligent use of a deadly weapon.
The verdict brings an end to the high-profile case involving a minor, charged as an adult, and one of the brightest hoops prospects to come out of Santa Fe in a generation. White, who garnered the attention of scouts from some of the biggest basketball programs in the country before he decided to graduate early and play for the University of New Mexico Lobos, was 18 when he died.
Jude Voss, the grandmother who raised White, was emotional outside the courthouse after the judge read the verdict.
“I’m very, very grateful for, just finally, justice and just very happy that the truth came out,” Voss said. “I knew that my son wasn’t an aggressive, mean person. I had to live the last year and a half just worried that we weren’t going to get justice.”
White’s family has since started the JB White Foundation in an effort to bring awareness to “senseless gun violence.”
“We’re all very relieved and all very happy that Estevan is put away and hopefully this will make him become a better person,” said Chantel Esquibel, White’s sister. “I do feel like justice was served, but, of course, no amount of justice can ever bring June Bug back.”
For more than a year, Montoya and his attorneys have argued that he shot White in self defense at the home in Chupadero, where an estimated 50 to 150 youths showed up for what was supposed to be an ordinary high school party—unsupervised and with alcohol. The case reached a high point Monday when Montoya took the stand, speaking for the first time since he was arrested just hours after the shooting.
Montoya is facing up to life in prison, with the possibility of parole after 30 years. State District Court Judge T. Glenn Ellington has not yet set a sentencing date.
Read SFR’s daily coverage of the trial here.
