New Mexico
New Mexico father, son reunite in El Paso after 3-year abduction
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — As families across the country gather together to celebrate the 4th of July, one family will reunite for the first time in years in El Paso.
Juan Escobar, an Albuquerque native, will finally be able to celebrate a holiday with his 14-year-old son, Andrew, all thanks to the El Paso Police Department.
Over the last three years, Escobar endured a long-standing search and custody battle over Andrew with his Miriam Felix, Andrew’s mom, which he originally won in 2023.
Not long after that custody victory, Andrew went with Felix for an overnight stay.
He never came home.
Missing posters said Andrew went missing June 25, 2023. He was 11 years old at the time.
Escobar hired a private investigator to uncover Andrew’s whereabouts. Investigation revealed Felix changed her name to Sophie Shelton and changed Andrew’s name to Oliver Shelton. The two reportedly moved to an area near Fort Collins, Colorado.
Suddenly, the case changed from a missing child to an abduction.
Escobar wasn’t able to find Andrew or Felix in Fort Collins.
After years of prayer and searching for answers, Juan received a phone call from El Paso Police last week.
In the call, EPPD said they had Felix in custody and Andrew waiting for him.
Escobar said Andrew told authorities he and his mom traveled to several countries over the three-year period, including Austria, Albania and Turkey.
He reportedly said he went to school online and just finished eighth grade.
However, his father is worried about his mental health.
“Physically, he’s well,” Escobar said. “But he’s just been through so much the last three years emotionally and mentally.”
Escobar told ABC-7 police said Border Patrol identified Andrew as a missing person while he and Felix reportedly crossed into El Paso from Ciudad Juarez, putting both of them into custody.
Escobar told ABC-7 his wife drove him down to El Paso and told him he wasn’t “in the condition to drive.”
He said his first instinct was to hug Andrew, since they used to love wrestling, but was told to give him space instead.
“The reality is that Andrew was an 11-year-old boy that was abducted and was moved across the country, and then moved out of the country and possibly overseas over the last three years,” Escobar said. “He’s a boy right now who has been in flight or fight mode for the last three years.”
Escobar said he’s now investigating how Andrew reportedly traveled around the world without being flagged as a missing person.
He also said he hopes Felix understands the gravity of what she’s done.
“This isn’t just trying to keep a father away from his son. This is breaking local law and breaking international law,” Escobar said. “I’m hopeful she understands what she’s done and she gets the help that she needs.”
Escobar also questioned how Felix afforded international trips.
As Andrew reunites with his father, Escobar has a simple message for parents and families this holiday weekend:
“Do what’s best for your children,” Escobar said. “Because ultimately, they’re what matter the most.”
Escobar said he’s excited to spend the holiday weekend with his son.
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New Mexico State Treasurer Laura Montoya reintroduced baby bonds to legislative teams at a recent conference.
During this conference, Montoya and her team explained what baby bonds would do, what they would mean for New Mexicans and asked for their thoughts and what she could change to help get it passed in the New Mexico Legislature.
Baby bonds are a way for parents to set children up for success later down the line, Montoya said. New Mexico would allocate around $7,000 to each newborn child as part of the bond proposal. The bond would grow over time, and the child would have access to it at age 18. Bonds could be used for a down payment for a car or to pay for parts of school that are not covered by the lottery or opportunity scholarships, buying or renovating a home, or starting a business all withing the state of New Mexico.
Montoya said the funds would not be used for random expenses.
“Now you might be saying, ‘when I was 18 and I would never give myself that money.’ You’re not getting the money directly. So, what happens is it all gets put into a pool of cash that is invested by the State Investment Council. They manage the money and then when you need it, let’s say you’re a student and NMSU gives us an invoice, you say ‘yes, I went to school and NMSU needs to be paid out,’” Montoya said. “Then it goes to the appropriate (agency), whether it’s EFA (Education Freedom Account) or whoever the Legislature designates, will then sign off the check and send it directly to NMSU. So, it’s their money but it isn’t their money.”
Montoya hypothesized on how a bond would benefit a young New Mexican.
“So, you consider an 18-year-old from a working-class family living in Rio Arriba (County), who dreams of attending a four-year college and eventually becoming a nurse. However, achieving this dream would have been difficult given her family’s working-class income. Having a Baby Bond has already made a difference. Research indicates that even small dollar savings accounts with money designated for school results in low-and middle-income children being more likely to enroll in college,” Montoya said.
Montoya said that statistics from the Treasurer’s Office, other state government agencies and pulled from public records to show what a baby bond could do for someone in a low income bracket.
“So, in Rio Arriba only 6% of adults have a degree beyond a bachelor’s degree. Only 7.5% of renters in Rio Arriba are able to afford median home price and baby bonds can contribute to significant decreases in student loan debt especially for women and people of color. You’ll see that same $7,000 she used $13,000 of it for nursing school when she was 18. Then, she still made another $23,000 and she used 30,000 for a home down payment. By the end of it she still had $150,000,” Montoya said.
The children who receive baby bonds would gain access to them only by taking a financial literacy course — or as Montoya calls it financial fitness course. This could be offered through state banks, but she said maybe later down the line it will be offered in kindergarten through grade 12.
“Financial fitness for me is something that I’m very passionate about because I grew up super humble and we didn’t have anyone to teach us what that looked like in having a savings account and investing and so many New Mexicans don’t. So, the one place we can learn this is in our schools, and we need to partner because a lot of our schools don’t have some of that expertise,” she said. “We need to partner with our banks; we need to partner with others that are doing the work already. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We just need to bring more people in to partner.”
Department Head and Professor at NMSU Harikuman Sankaran questioned whether the bonds could be used by students already relying on the New Mexico Legislative Lottery Scholarship and New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship. Deputy State Treasurer Ricky Serna said students had the option to access the funds regardless of scholarship awards.
“If I’m a student that says, ‘I live in Albuquerque and I’m going to UNM, I already don’t have to pay tuition and I have a scholarship and now I don’t have to pay for books and fees. Do I have to now wait until I buy a home to access my baby bond?’ Maybe it’s ‘No, I can tell UNM I have enough to put me to work in the school of arts and sciences or put me to work somewhere because I want to use some of my money now, right?’ I think that’s the idea,” Serna said.
Montoya said that this concern would be addressed later to not overcomplicate the bond proposal.
“But that’s something the Legislature can do in the future, too. I mean we have 18 years, so I don’t want to complicate it at this moment. I just want to keep it as simple as possible, but I understand (the concern) of what you’re saying on the long-term investment to have them buy in,” Montoya said.
Montoya said Baby Bonds have the potential to address some of the state’s largest issues – poverty, educational attainment and housing. As the bond recipient gets older it too can ease the burden of housing, retirement and reliance on public assistance.
Children born in New Mexico could access the investment between the ages 18 and 35 to build wealth.
Montoya asked the public to comment on the use of Baby Bonds, an issue the state Legislature will consider in the 2027 Legislative session.
Leighanne Muñoz is the business and development reporter for the Las Cruces Sun-News and is a fellow with the New Mexico Local News Fellowships and Internships Program, which places emerging journalists in newsrooms across New Mexico. Learn more at www.newmexicolocalnewsfellowships.org. Email her at lmunoz@gannett.com.
Truth or Consequences keeps 10 commercial hot spring spas inside a walkable historic district, with mineral water piped directly into private soaking tubs at most of them. That kind of practical retirement amenity tends to show up across New Mexico. The seven towns ahead pair affordable housing markets with regional hospitals and the natural-amenity access that makes a second act feel like one. Most sit in walkable historic centers with median home prices well below national figures. The desert sky and small-town routine come included.
Truth or Consequences
Truth or Consequences runs on hot water. Ten commercial hot spring spas cluster inside a walkable historic district, and most pipe geothermal, mineral-rich water directly into private soaking tubs. Riverbend Hot Springs frames the Rio Grande and Turtleback Mountain from open-air tubs. La Paloma anchors the resort-style end of the local scene. The Geronimo Springs Museum, set in the middle of the same neighborhood, holds the largest prehistoric pottery collection in Sierra County, plus community meeting space and a working gift shop.
Elephant Butte Lake State Park, the largest in New Mexico, sits a short drive north for camping, marinas, and sandy-beach swimming. The unusual town name dates to 1950, when the place renamed itself after a national radio show. The median home price runs about $258,000, well over $130,000 below the New Mexico statewide median.
Taos
Taos sits at the cultural center of the Southwest. Centuries of Pueblo, Spanish Colonial, and artist-colony layers are visible in any single afternoon. The Harwood Museum of Art, founded in 1923, is the second-oldest art museum in the state. The Couse-Sharp Historic Site preserves the studios and paintings of the early-twentieth-century Taos Society of Artists. The Kit Carson Home and Museum, built around 1825 and now a National Historic Landmark, opens onto the Spanish Colonial and Territorial eras of the American West.
The Sangre de Cristo Mountains rise immediately east, holding the ski runs and aspen lines that color the town gold every October. The Taos Retirement Village handles full-service senior living with a steady calendar of activities. Median listings track higher than most towns on this list, reflecting Taos Pueblo’s UNESCO status and the cultural pull of the town itself.
Ruidoso
Ruidoso sits at 6,920 feet in the pine-covered foothills of Sierra Blanca. Cool summers and mild winters suit retirees who want mountain air without the harshest winter conditions. Outdoor recreation runs through daily life here. Ski Apache covers the higher elevation in winter, and alpine lakes like Alto Lake (one of only two area lakes that allows non-motorized boats) carry the warmer months. Elk wander through town.
Adobe Fine Art and the New Mexico Art Glass Center anchor a small but active gallery scene downtown. Blue Lotus Day Spa & Yoga handles massage, yoga, and holistic treatments at workable prices. Lincoln County Medical Center delivers regional care, and GoodLife Senior Living Ruidoso runs an engaged senior community on the south side. A clear-eyed note for any retiree weighing the move: Ruidoso has lived through real wildfire and flood events in recent years, and the housing market and insurance picture reflect that risk profile.
Corrales
Corrales sits twenty minutes from Albuquerque, the largest city in New Mexico with a population over 500,000. That proximity puts Presbyterian Hospital and the rest of the metro’s specialty care, dining, and cultural calendar inside an easy daily drive. Presbyterian Hospital ranks at the top end of New Mexico’s hospital systems on the U.S. News & World Report comparative scoring. The median resident age in Corrales sits around 57, and the village infrastructure matches that demographic.
Walkable streets connect the Corrales Community Library, the Corrales Bosque Gallery, and the Corrales Bosque Preserve, a stretch of cottonwood and willow along the Rio Grande. The village pace stays slow and residential, with horse pastures and orchards a few blocks from any house. That combination is rare in metro-adjacent New Mexico: rural texture without the rural drive to a hospital.
Grants
Historic Route 66 runs through downtown Grants. The New Mexico Mining Museum, which charges seniors around four dollars, displays mining equipment from the uranium boom that transformed this part of the state in the 1950s. The Cibola County History Museum covers the same era from a different angle, with Pueblo culture, frontier ranching, and railroading exhibits across themed rooms.
El Malpais National Monument lies just south of town, with lava-flow trails and volcanic features inside an easy day-trip radius. The Route 66 Drive-Thru Arch at the east entrance is the unofficial town photo. Bella’s Boutique downtown stocks accessible local goods. Median home prices around $175,000 sit at the lowest end of this list, and Albuquerque is about ninety minutes east when specialty needs come up.
Tucumcari
Tucumcari sits along the original Route 66 alignment, and the neon signs along Tucumcari Boulevard still light up at night. The bird-in-flight sign above the Blue Swallow Motel is the most photographed; the Blue Swallow has been a working motel since 1939 and stands as the unofficial signature of the town. Nearly a hundred murals across downtown walls turn most walks into a slow gallery loop. The Tucumcari Historical Museum, set in a 1903 schoolhouse, holds local artifacts organized by themed room.
The Mesalands Community College Dinosaur Museum runs one of the world’s largest bronze dinosaur skeleton collections, an unusual feature for a town this size. The Rockin’ Route 66 Festival in late June fills downtown with classic cars, live music, and roadside Americana. Median home prices run around $210,000.
Carlsbad
Carlsbad pairs an active downtown along the Pecos River with a regional hospital, median home prices around $330,000, and direct access to Carlsbad Caverns National Park half an hour south. Carlsbad Medical Center handles emergency and inpatient care for the region. Good Life Senior Living and Memory Care runs the assisted-living and memory-care side.
The Carlsbad Labyrinth at Riverview Park gives an easy daily walk along the water. Living Desert Zoo & Gardens State Park stretches over 1,200 acres of desert garden with animal exhibits and mountain views just at the edge of town. The Alejandro Ruiz Senior Center anchors the community side with weekday activities and a regular bingo night. That mix of price, healthcare, and natural-amenity access is what puts Carlsbad on this list.
Settling Into a New Mexico Retirement
Across these seven towns, the same trade keeps showing up. Lower housing costs. Regional rather than national hospital systems. An unhurried daily routine in a walkable historic district. Truth or Consequences and Grants run on the lowest budgets. Taos and Ruidoso carry higher costs but deliver more cultural and outdoor pull in return. Corrales offers metro-adjacent practicality. Tucumcari and Carlsbad sit in the middle on price with strong regional character. None of these towns require giving up a working hospital, a calendar of community events, or the New Mexico sky.
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