Josef Toney is a teen killer from New Mexico who would murder two women during a robbery
According to court documents Josef Toney, who was fifteen at the time, would fatally shoot Aerial Mallam, 21, and Jessica Casaus Lucero, 31, at the Aztec Village apartments in Albuquerque New Mexico. While fleeing the scene Toney would shoot and injure a man
Josef Toney would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to forty five years in prison and must serve thirty eight years before being eligible for parole
Josef Toney Case
A judge on Wednesday sentenced 19-year-old Josef Toney to 45 years in prison in the shooting deaths of two women during a 2021 robbery.
Toney was 15 at the time he fatally shot Aerial Mallam, 21, and Jessica Lucero, 31, as Mallam’s 2-year-old daughter looked on, prosecutors said at Toney’s sentencing hearing.
Toney pleaded guilty in May to two counts of first-degree murder and armed robbery for entering a Northeast Albuquerque apartment to steal cannabis or money and killing the women.
He also pleaded guilty to aggravated battery for shooting and injuring a man in the same incident
At an emotionally charged sentencing hearing in 2nd Judicial District Court, family members said that Mallam’s daughter, now 7, still has vivid memories of her mother’s killing.
“She is deeply saddened not having her mother in her life,” Mallam’s mother, Terra Mitchell, said of Mallam’s daughter.
“My granddaughter checks every window and door, making sure they are locked and talks about her mother and cries for her mother and how much she misses her,” Mitchell said.
District Judge Courtney Weaks sentenced Toney as a serious violent offender, which requires him to serve at least 85% of his sentence — 34 years — before he is eligible for parole.
Toney also has been charged with escaping from the Youth Detention Center for about 24 hours in June. That felony charge of escape from jail remains pending.
The escape prompted prosecutors to scrap an earlier sentencing agreement that would have capped Toney’s sentence at a maximum 34 years in prison.
Prosecutor Jordan Machin asked the judge to sentence Toney to 81 years in prison.
“He took the lives of two beautiful mothers,” Machin said. “Actions speak louder than words. He’s only sorry now because he’s looking at 81 years.”
In a rambling five-minute statement, Toney apologized to the victims’ families and said he has come to understand that his actions were wrong.
“It took a lot of time and a lot of me learning about real-life situations, like reading the news and reading books and truly understanding that life is a precious thing,” Toney said.
Toney’s attorney, Stephanie Gulley, argued that Toney grew up without parental supervision from the time he was a young child.
Toney “was left to his own devices from the age of 1,” Gulley told the judge. “He stole, he fought, he begged for food.”
Gulley told Weaks that Toney will be released from prison one day and needs treatment and medication and argued for a shorter sentence.
“This is what we see when we don’t take care of children — when they grow up fending for themselves,” said Gulley, referring to a pre-sentence report prepared for the court.
Weaks said during sentencing that she recognized that Toney was only 15 at the time of the killings.
“I think we can all agree that that is not a man — that is still a child,” Weaks said. “The court will treat him as a serious violent offender, but let’s be clear that he was still a child.”
Weaks also said she was struck by the profound grief of family members struggling with the loss of the slain women.
“This community is plagued by people that are of the age of Mr. Toney who are involved in these orchestrated drug robberies,” Weaks said. “And it results in the … loss of life of individuals on a regular and consistent basis.”