The Associated Press
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - As a criminal investigator, Karen Yontz was a standout - the kind called in on big cases and sought out by colleagues for advice on tough legal questions.
In her personal life, she was a devoted stepmother and a generous friend who once surprised a co-worker’s son with a boom box.
So Yontz’s death May 2 at the hands of police came as a shock and a puzzle: Why would the career law enforcement officer drive her state-owned car to a bank, rob it while only lightly disguised, then point her service revolver at pursuing officers and urge them to shoot her?
The answer, at least in part, according to friends and official records, was that the 50-year-old investigator with the New Mexico attorney general’s office was a troubled woman who developed a gambling habit, ran up heavy losses and turned to crime in a desperate attempt to cover her debts.
Her standoff with police ended in what was, in effect, a suicide.
“This was someone who was in a lot of pain and this was the only way she knew to end everything,” said Angela R. Pacheco, a former co-worker and longtime friend. Yontz’s trips to play video poker at nearby Indian casinos had at first been a diversion from personal stresses but had turned into a darker routine, friends say.
“She was very open in the beginning” about gambling, said Cindy Romero, Yontz’s former partner when Yontz worked in the district attorney’s office in Santa Fe. “And then as it became an addiction, she wouldn’t even say she was going. But different people would see her there.”
Her husband, Jim Yontz, told Albuquerque TV station KOAT that his wife had lost more than $100,000. “She had so much pride, it just ate her up,” he said two days after her death. He also told investigators she had fraudulently written checks on his personal bank account.
As her losses piled up, her world got messier. The May 2 bank robbery came the same day that paperwork to deduct money from Yontz’s wages to help pay off a debt was sent to a judge for approval. Court records showed that as of Feb. 28, she owed about $8,000 to a finance company for a personal loan taken out in 2000.
She also was under investigation for allegedly obtaining a credit card in someone else’s name, and Yontz’s supervisor told police he found downloaded check-making software on her work computer.
On the day of her death, the attorney general’s office had planned to suspend her with pay.
Meanwhile, the FBI had released a sketch of a female bank robber in an April 25 heist. Authorities now believe it was Yontz.
Her personal life appeared troubled in other respects. The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department had been called to the Yontz home on a family disturbance call in 1996 and to check on the couple in 2000, according to records.
Her husband resigned from his prosecutor’s post in 1998 after police allegedly found him in his truck with a “known prostitute,” records show. He later was rehired. No charges were filed in any of the cases.
He declined repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press.
On May 2, Yontz walked into New Mexico Bank and Trust in a baseball cap and sunglasses. Wielding a gun, she demanded money from a teller. She fled, but police were soon tailing her getaway car - a government-owned Chevrolet Malibu. Once cornered in the parking lot of a burger joint, Yontz remained in her car, service revolver in hand. Police say she made a quick cell phone call; whom she called has been not been disclosed. Several times, she put the gun to her head. Officers ordered her to drop her weapon. Yontz shook her head. At one point, she said: “You’re going to have to shoot me.”
Then Yontz raised the gun toward them, according to police.
Officers opened fire, striking Yontz at least twice in her upper torso and once in the head. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Only later did officers notice the police radio in the car and find out the vehicle was registered to the attorney general’s office.
During the standoff, Yontz “absolutely knew what was going to happen,” said Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg.
“Knowing Karen like I did, she would have never, never hurt anybody,” Romero said “It didn’t surprise that she didn’t fire her gun. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. I’m sure she was thinking, ‘I can’t even hurt myself. I’m going to let someone else do it.’ ”
Romero recalled how Yontz taught her about investigating child abuse cases and was always able to answer the most complex of legal questions.
Pacheco said she is angered by headlines that depict a “cop gone bad.”
“We’re having a real hard time,” Romero said. “She loved law enforcement, she really did. She taught me a whole lot. She’s a very bright person and that’s why this is all so shocking to us.”
Yontz’s 18-year-old stepdaughter, Tammara Yontz, said she just wishes she had known how desperate her stepmother had become. The teenager recalled her stepmother tucking her in at night and dropping everything at work to help her. “I would have done anything to have helped her,” Tammara Yontz said. “I still really love her.”