Jayme Kushman, on the left, Jamie Sena, center, and Lora Melancon, on the right. (Curry County Detention Centers)
Three New Mexico women previously facing a combined 51 child abuse charges will be able to considerably pare down their criminal liability when they enter into plea agreements in the near future.
Jayme Kushman, 37, Jamie Sena, 29, and Lora Melancon, 42, were taken into custody throughout a series of arrests that began in late August 2022 and carried on into September last year.
Each of the trio plan to plead guilty to a “handful” of charges in exchange for most of the charges being dropped, according to court records reviewed by Albuquerque-based CBS and Fox affiliate KRQE.
Some of the alleged child abuse incidents are said to have occurred in Texas. Most of the incidents are alleged to have occurred in the Land of Enchantment – at a residence in Texico, a tiny city in Curry County just across the border from the Lone Star State.
Sena and Melancon were both romantically involved with Kushman in the past; Sena being the more recent ex-girlfriend. Each of the women allegedly abused the children while living in Kushman’s house.
For “numerous years” spanning nearly a decade, six children between the ages of 5 and 16 – including Sena’s own children, younger relatives of Kushman, a neighboring child and a foster child – were subject to various forms of physical and emotional abuse, a criminal complaint obtained by the Rio Ranch Observer alleges.
“[N]obody knew anything or did something for these children,” one police investigator in the complaint stated. “It is surreal and baffling that this was happening and nobody acted until New Mexico State Police got involved.”
In December 2022, allegations surfaced that a homeless couple may have traded their infant girl to Kushman for a travel trailer several years prior. The child’s mother later told the media that there was no trade arrangement for giving the baby away to Kushman. The 2-week-old was ultimately removed from Kushman’s home by the Children, Youth and Families Department when she tested positive for methamphetamine, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
That prior incident – and the state’s response to it – became subject to scrutiny as the shocking abuse allegations came to light.
“The reaction I get from people that I talk to is really one of horror,” 9th Judicial District Attorney Brian Stover told the Journal in September 2022. “They can’t believe this happened first of all, and that it happened for as long as it did.”
In July 2022, six children were removed from Kushman’s residence when a CYFD supervisor and two NMSP officers found that sewage was backed up, the building reeked of urine, no running water, chains attached to walls, and a padlock on at least one of the beds.
“They used to keep them in dog cages,” a CYFD investigator tells an NMSP officer in a body-worn camera video from the day the children were removed from the Kushman place for good. “We’ve taken these kids away before for being in dog cages.”
According to the NMSP, the children told law enforcement that they were routinely chained up, beaten with wooden paddles, and starved as punishment for taking food from the fridge. A resulting investigation found videos of the abuse, police said, including the children’s screams, and a boy “being smothered in his own vomit.”
Officers also said they found an image of children “eating spaghetti from inside a filthy bathtub with their bare hands and naked.”
Witnesses and CYFD agents knew of at least some of the alleged abuse for years, according to court documents cited by Albuquerque-based NBC affiliate KOB, but nothing seemed to change.
There may just be a reason for that.
Court documents obtained by KRQE cite witnesses who claim Texico Police Chief Douglas Bowman was in Kushman’s “back pocket” and would warn the defendant when CYFD was about to visit.
In comments to the Journal, the police chief suggested someone else may have tipped Kushman off to potential child welfare visits.
“I’m maintaining I’ve done what I was able to do at the time,” Bowman told the paper. “Had there been more, I assure you I would have made an arrest. The people of this community know that.”
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