A Georgia man has pleaded guilty in federal court to fatally shooting a woman as she pumped gas at a travel center on Acoma Pueblo land in New Mexico, then stealing her car and fleeing from law enforcement. Jaquari Hezakiyah Porter, 26, pleaded guilty to carjacking resulting in death and to using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico announced on November 4. At sentencing he faces up to life in prison.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, District of New Mexico
According to court documents, on February 1, 2025, Porter approached a woman as she was pumping gas at the Sky City Travel Center in Acoma, New Mexico. He shot the victim twice, killing her, and stole her vehicle before fleeing toward Grants, a town about 15 miles east on Interstate 40. The woman is identified only as Jane Doe in the federal announcements; an earlier Justice Department release said she was an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation.
The chase and the shootout on I-40
The killing was the start of a crime spree that ran through the evening. Earlier that night, a New Mexico State Police officer had stopped Porter for speeding, and Porter fled, according to the Cibola Citizen, the local newspaper in Grants. After the shooting at the travel center, Porter ran into officers from the Cibola County Sheriff’s Office and the Grants Police Department. He tried to flee again and fired at the officers, who returned fire, striking Porter twice before taking him into custody.
The shootout ended on Interstate 40 near mile marker 81, east of Grants, where Porter got out of the stolen vehicle and opened fire on officers, the Cibola Citizen reported. No officers were injured in the exchange, according to Cibola County Sheriff Larry Diaz. Porter was shot and wounded by the officers’ return fire and taken to a hospital before being booked into custody.
How the case reached federal court
Because the killing happened on tribal land — the Pueblo of Acoma — the FBI took charge of the homicide investigation, while the New Mexico State Police Investigations Bureau handled the officer-involved shooting on I-40, which is the standard procedure when officers fire their weapons. A grand jury indicted Porter on February 28, 2025, and the case moved to Grants District Court, where he was held in pretrial preventive detention. He also faced separate state-court matters in Albuquerque Metropolitan Court, including aggravated fleeing from law enforcement and speeding.
The guilty plea was announced by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Ellison and Special Agent in Charge Justin A. Garris of the FBI’s Albuquerque Field Office. The FBI’s Albuquerque Field Office investigated the case with assistance from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Cibola County Sheriff’s Office, the Grants Police Department and the New Mexico State Police. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Meg Tomlinson, Jack Burkhead and Natasha Moghadam are prosecuting the case.
What the guilty plea means
By pleading guilty, Porter admitted the facts behind the two federal counts: that he killed the woman during a carjacking, and that he used and carried a firearm during that crime of violence. A guilty plea also means the case will not go to a jury trial on those counts. The Justice Department announcement did not give a sentencing date, and it did not say what sentence prosecutors will seek, only that the maximum is life in prison.
A long road to the plea
More than 20 months passed between the February 2025 killing and the November 2026 plea. In that time the case moved through the state courts in Grants and Albuquerque and through the federal system, with Porter held in custody after the court granted pretrial preventive detention in February 2025. The plea closes the federal prosecution’s trial phase, but the heaviest part of the case — the sentence — is still to come.
What happens next
Porter will be sentenced in federal court in Albuquerque. No sentencing date had been announced in the Justice Department’s November 4 release, and the court will decide the sentence after reviewing the case, including the plea agreement and the presentence report. He remains in custody while he awaits sentencing.
Source: Cibola Citizen
Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico; the Cibola Citizen, Grants, New Mexico; and CrimeCod.