In a complaint filed Feb. 9 with the Nogales Court of Justice, Larkin wrote that Kelly fired “warning shots” over the heads of men he believed to be smugglers.

However, Kelly “denied firing directly at any person,” she wrote, adding, “He said his warning shot could have hit the person or caused death.” I don’t think so,” he added.

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office has released few details explaining why they decided to arrest Kelly on January 30 and charge him with first-degree murder. But he has since been held in county jail on his $1 million cash bond. This amount is typically set in first-degree murder cases in Santa Cruz County.

Larkin’s recent motion requires that Kelly be released from third parties or have the bond reduced or changed to a bond. claim that his presence is necessary for

Defendants’ version of the January 30 events included in the motion is intended to strengthen the argument for the new terms of release.

The document adds, “Quite simply, this is a case of an innocent person being wrongfully accused of a crime.”

The county attorney’s office prosecuting the case had not filed a complaint against it as of Monday afternoon, and no hearing had been set for the magistrate to consider Kelly’s request. The next scheduled event in the case is a preliminary hearing set for February 22nd.

Kelly was having lunch with his wife on January 30 when he heard “a single gunshot,” according to the documents.

Soon after, the motion claims Kelly noticed a group of men “moving among the trees around his house.” The man was described as carrying his AK-47 rifle and a large backpack and wearing khakis and camouflage. Kelly said he contacted a U.S. Border Patrol ranch liaison before arming himself with his rifle and walking to the front door.

“The armed group leader saw Mr. Kelly and pointed an AK-47 at him,” the motion claims.

In response, Kelly claimed that he fired several shots with his rifle, purposely aiming over the head of the individual in hopes of frightening the men away.

The group then dispersed into the desert, documents say.

The allegation also alleges that when Kelly called a Border Patrol ranch liaison to report the group, he told authorities the man was armed and heard a single gunshot.

However, Kelly’s attorneys allege that the Border Patrol ranch liaison “wrongly reported that Mr. Kelly said he did not know whether the man was armed.”

Upon arrival that afternoon, Border Patrol agents and sheriff’s deputies searched the area, according to the motion, but “no one was found.” is consistent with Deputy Commissioner Gerardo Castillo, who spoke to NI the day after the arrest, said sheriffs responded to the area mid-afternoon and found nothing.

Later that same day, according to a motion by the defense, Kelly walked into a pasture to check on a horse that had reportedly been frightened by “armed men” before. I became attached to something near the tree.

“Mr. Kelly approached the dog and observed the corpse lying (face down) in the grass,” the motion states.

Kelly then called law enforcement and said an agent helped find the body.

The dead man did not have a firearm or a backpack, as Kelly’s motion admits.

“The individual was carrying a radio and was wearing tactical boots, indicating that he may have engaged in illegal activities,” the allegation states.

Kelly and his lawyers further argue his innocence, noting that the rancher cooperated with law enforcement.

“If Kelly had really premeditated someone’s murder, there would have been no motive to call law enforcement and lead them to a dead body,” Larkin wrote.

The motion also speculates that the victims may have been killed by other drug traffickers.

Kelly’s wife also says it corroborated Kelly’s account of seeing armed men near the property.

Reports of men armed with assault rifles in the Santa Cruz County border area are relatively rare, especially in recent years.

In 2011-2012, armed gangs attacked migrants and marijuana smugglers west of Nogales. This pattern eventually culminated in a confrontation in December 2012, when Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was shot dead near Peck His Canyon.

And in 2016, Sonoita-based Border Patrol agents identified five suspected drug smugglers in Sutherland Peak, an area of ​​Cochise County about 3.5 miles north of the border and eight miles east of the Santa Cruz County line. There, agents arrested two suspects and also seized an AR-15 style rifle, an AK-47 style rifle, and two bundles of marijuana.

However, these incidents occurred in more isolated areas and on sparsely populated National Forest Service lands. These events unfolded even before cannabis was widely legalized across the United States. This has dramatically reduced the illegal marijuana smuggling industry.

Lawyer and rancher Tony Sedgwick owns land on roughly the same site as Kelly’s, east of Nogales, and armed men have “give or take” his ranch. Walked around said he hadn’t heard of it in 15 years.

And marijuana is already legal, he pointed out.

“Maybe it’s fentanyl,” Sedgwick speculated after hearing about Kelly’s testimony of a man with a backpack.

Illegal marijuana trafficking has declined significantly, but hard drugs such as fentanyl, methamphetamine and heroin continue to circulate across borders.

However, there have been several recent incidents of smugglers allegedly transporting drugs through the local desert. On February 9, a Border Patrol agent said the Tucson Sector Chief Patrol his agent John Modlin tweeted that apparently Santa had left him in Madera Canyon, at the northern tip of Cruz County, weighing 102 pounds. Discovered methamphetamine. And he said on January 27, Border Patrol agents reportedly found a 170-pound bundle of marijuana near Tubac.

The February 9 motion not only provides details for Kelly’s version of events, but also details Kelly’s background. According to documents, Kelly and his wife moved to Arizona in 1997 after selling the fishing lodge they operated in Montana.

According to a CaseText document obtained by NI, an appeal from the Kellys’ civil lawsuit nearly a decade ago describes the Montana lodge as a “luxury resort.”

In 2002, the couple purchased 170 acres of land in Kino Springs, appellant wrote: Their plans included building a resort called Vermillion Mountain Ranch, and on the grounds of which he would build and sell five ‘lodge houses’. ”

Both the motion and the CaseText document describe Kelly as a former employee of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Now, according to Kelly’s motion, he and his wife rely solely on Social Security income.

“(Kerry) describes himself as ‘land rich and dollar poor,'” the motion states.

Aside from his career in hospitality and federal government, Kelly seems to have been involved in self-published writing as well.

The author of the same name, George Alan Kelly, wrote a 57-page book on Amazon titled Far Beyond the Border Fence. The work depicts a man and his wife who live on a ranch in southern Arizona near the border, and several identifying elements in the book are actual facts about Kelly, such as the name of his property, Vermilion Mountain Ranch. match the details of

The book, which was flooded with reviews following Kelly’s arrest, depicts a remote desert area enduring an influx of “drug traffickers.”

“They passed through the ranch from dusk to dawn, armed with automatic rifles and shooting first, without asking questions,” the book states. “They knew he had entered the VMR at their own peril and that their fire would return.”

Publicly available details about the victim, Quen Buitimere, are far scarce. However, federal court records show he has a history of illegal border crossings and deportations in and around Nogales, with the most recent incident being recorded in 2016.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Clark. )