A Santa Fe man charged for killing a fellow city employee will be released on house arrest to prepare for his upcoming trial. Karl Rougemont was released to his parents to stay in their home where he’ll wear an ankle monitor to detect his location.
"Rougemont is accused of killing Christopher Vigil during a fight on the street on St. Michael’s and Cerillos on March 7. The autopsy showed the manner of death as five gunshot wounds to the abdomen,” Allen Benitez, the New Mexico State Police case agent assigned to the homicide, told KRQE.
The two Santa Fe employees apparently weren’t the best of friends when one killed the other. Rougement worked in collections in the city’s utility department, and Vigil was a meter reader, according to a report on KRQE. The two had apparently had issues with each other, a feud that boiled over recently and ended in tragedy.
Rougemont is accused of shooting Vigil in a road dispute near St. Michaels Drive and Cerrillos Road. According to the KRQE report, witnesses saw two individuals in separate vehicles when they stopped, got out of their respective cars and started fighting.
At one point, witnesses said Rougemont pulled out a gun and shot five times, hitting Vigil once.
The City of Santa Fe would not comment on whether it knew of any documented problems between the two men or whether one had filed a complaint against the other.
But a member of the city’s employees union told KRQE there were documented complaints between the two men for more than a year.
“I even had a conversation with Chris to talk to his supervisor he could be transferred to a different department and that would separate them,” Local 3999 Union President Gilbert Baca told KRQE. “Nobody followed up on it.”
The investigation into the shooting continues.