Costilla County Sheriff Danny Sanchez and former Deputy Keith Schultz have been indicted on five counts each of official misconduct and one count each of abuse of a corpse as part of a sweeping investigation by the 12th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
Undersheriff Cruz Soto and Sergeant Caleb Sanchez and Deputy Roland Riley were also indicted by a 12th Judicial grand jury, according to a district attorney’s announcement released Friday afternoon. The indictments were handed down on Thursday, March 26.
“The District Attorney’s Office is committed to investigating and prosecuting violations of
Colorado law, regardless of who the offender is and what title they hold. Our community
expects our law enforcement officers to perform their duties with integrity and adherence to the law. Restoring and maintaining public trust must always start with accountability,” District Attorney Anne Kelly said in a released statement.
A press conference was held on Friday, March 27.
It was in July of 2025 that Kelly first went public with concerns related to Sanchez and the Costilla County Sheriff’s Department. She later said crime investigators collected more than 1,000 pieces of evidence, some dating back to 1976, as part of a complete cleanup of the evidence storage room at the sheriff’s department when Colorado Bureau of Investigation swept in last September.
The abuse of corpse charge against Sanchez and Schultz involves their handling of the discovery of unidentified human remains in the Wild Horse Mesa area of Costilla County in 2024. In Sanchez’s indictment, it states that Sanchez and Schultz collected a human skull but “they never returned to collect the rest of the remains.”
Soto was indicted on two counts of failing to intervene and one count of third-degree assault for his involvement in a use-of-force incident with a Costilla County citizen suffering from a mental health crisis in February 2026. Sanchez and Riley were indicted on counts of assault in the second and third degree for their use of force in that incident.
These indictments follow an extensive investigation conducted by investigators with the 12th Judicial District Attorney’s Office. The investigation is ongoing in response to reports of misconduct by the sheriff’s office from Costilla County residents. Kelly was assisted by Assistant Attorney General Christian Champaign in obtaining the indictments.
An indictment formally charges a person with a crime. All defendants are presumed innocent unless or until proven guilty.
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