Jaquari Hezakiyah Porter

Introduction

Jaquari Hezakiyah Porter, a 26-year-old Georgia man, has pleaded guilty in federal court in New Mexico to carjacking resulting in death and to using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence — charges that track a February 1, 2025 killing in which Porter shot a woman twice as she pumped gas at the Sky City Travel Center in Acoma Pueblo, stole her vehicle, and led pursuing officers on a flight that ended in a shootout. At sentencing Porter faces up to life in federal prison. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Ellison for the District of New Mexico and FBI Albuquerque Special Agent in Charge Justin A. Garris announced the plea.

Background Information

The killing happened in daylight at a travel center serving Acoma Pueblo, a stop along the corridor between Albuquerque and Grants, New Mexico. According to court documents, Porter approached a woman identified in court papers as Jane Doe while she stood at the pump, shot her twice, and killed her — then took her vehicle and drove off in the direction of Grants. The victim was a stranger to the conduct of any ordinary traffic stop: she was doing what every traveler does at a gas station, and the federal carjacking-resulting-in-death charge exists precisely for the combination of a killing committed in the course of taking someone’s vehicle. The case drew agencies from three jurisdictions into its aftermath, because what followed the theft was an armed confrontation with the officers who tried to stop the stolen car.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Pleaded guilty; sentencing pending. Porter admitted carjacking resulting in death and a firearms offense and faces up to life in prison at sentencing.

Porter’s flight from the Acoma travel center lasted only as long as it took law enforcement to find him. Officers from the Cibola County Sheriff’s Office and the Grants Police Department encountered the stolen vehicle, and Porter attempted to flee rather than surrender. He fired at the pursuing officers, who returned fire and struck Porter twice before taking him into custody — wounded, arrested, and alive to face the federal charges built on the woman he had left dead at the pump. The plea to carjacking resulting in death carries the statutory maximum of life, and the accompanying firearms count — using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence — layers a mandatory-minimum weapons sentence on top of the carjacking term.

The investigation crossed federal, tribal, and local lines: the FBI Albuquerque Field Office led 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 guilty plea, announced in November 2026, resolves the charge phase of the case twenty-one months after the killing, with the sentencing hearing left to determine where within the statutory range Porter’s term will land.

Public Reaction and Consequences

A stranger’s death at a gas station pump is the kind of killing that lands hardest in small communities, and Acoma Pueblo’s travel center is exactly that kind of place — the case’s court papers preserve the victim’s anonymity as Jane Doe, but the sequence of her last minutes is fixed in the plea: shot twice while pumping gas, her car taken, her killer driving toward Grants with police behind him. The officers’ return fire that wounded Porter meant the confrontation produced a second crime scene and federal scrutiny of the entire pursuit, though the plea papers document the flight-and-shoot sequence as Porter’s own conduct. The firearms conviction attaches because the same gun that killed the victim was fired at the officers who caught him.

Current Status

Porter has pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing, where carjacking resulting in death exposes him to up to life in federal prison and the firearms count adds its own term. The plea means the facts of the killing — the approach at the pump, the two shots, the vehicle theft, the flight toward Grants, the gunfire exchanged with Cibola County and Grants officers — are admitted rather than contested. What remains open is only the length of the sentence, which the court will set at a hearing not yet held in the announcement.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Porter, 26, faces the realistic prospect of spending the rest of his life in federal custody: a carjacking-resulting-in-death conviction is among the most heavily scored offenses in the sentencing guidelines, and the admitted killing of a stranger for her car leaves little mitigation room. The two gunshot wounds he took from returning officers added a medical chapter to his case, but the plea removes any factual dispute about what happened at the travel center or during the pursuit. For the victim’s family, the plea spares a trial on the central facts, leaving a sentencing hearing as the final proceeding where the killing of a woman at a gas pump on February 1, 2025 is accounted for.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of New Mexico, “Georgia Man Pleads Guilty to Fatal Shooting and Carjacking,” November 4, 2026. source