A recently released felon wanted for the murder of an 83-year-old man in a Santa Fe Best Buy parking lot earlier this week was captured Saturday night after he and and an accomplice robbed an Arby’s restaurant in Las Cruces.
Zachary Babitz and the accomplice, a woman who has not been identified, carjacked a woman at gunpoint after the fast food restaurant robbery, KQRE reported. Police found the vehicle a short distance away, then located Babitz and took him into custody.
His accomplice has not been located.
Police said Babitz is also wanted for a robbery at a Wells Fargo bank in Albuquerque. The car Babitz and the woman drove to Arby’s was reported stolen in Albuquerque.
Gordon Peter Wilson was shot and killed on Tuesday in Santa Fe by a man, identified as Babitz, who stole his SUV, the Sante Fe New Mexican reported. Wilson was a retired finance executive and chairman of an Albuequerque-based archaeology organization that acquires and preserves endangered sites.
Investigators found Wilson’s Jeep in Albuquerque but did not find Babitz. On Thursday, warrants were issued for his arrest for first-degree murder, armed robbery, and possession of a firearm by a felon.
Babitz was released from a state prison in March after serving five years for a series of restaurant robberies. He also has ties to California-based Asatru Folk Assembly, a pagan organization that follows pre-Christian Norse and Germanic beliefs and is designated a white supremacist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Babitz is currently being held without bond at the Dona Ana County Detention Center in Las Cruces.
