Thomas Anthony Brown's disappearance turned into a grim discovery in the desert west of Albuquerque, where his remains were found in the To'Hajiilee area of the Navajo Nation on July 4, 2020. Investigators later determined that Brown died by homicidal violence that included blunt-force trauma to the head. Court filings describe how, days earlier, he was assaulted outside a trailer home, rolled in a piece of carpet, and taken to a remote stretch of land where he was abandoned without water,
food, or shelter. The case was investigated by the FBI's Albuquerque Field Office with assistance from Navajo agencies and ultimately moved forward in federal court.
Arrests and prosecutions followed. Antonio Chaco pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the assault and killing, and a federal judge sentenced him to 17 years in prison, to be followed by supervised release. In a related case, Peter Paul Sandoval admitted he helped cover up the crime by cleaning blood from the vehicle used to move Brown, pleading guilty as an accessory after the fact to kidnapping; he received a custodial sentence and supervised release and was ordered to pay restitution to Brown's family. These outcomes were announced by federal authorities in August 2025, closing the prosecution of the primary assailant and the accessory who worked to conceal what had been done.
