Jennifer Vigil spent years pleading with the state of Recent Mexico to support her son. She navigated courtrooms, worked with deputies, and endured years of instability in her home, all in an effort to secure the psychiatric care her son desperately needed. The safety net she relied on proved to be a series of holes.
Deven Roybal, 26, is now accused of killing his mother in their shared home in the Rancho Viejo subdivision south of Santa Fe. According to Santa Fe County deputies, Roybal fatally stabbed Vigil with a kitchen knife before fleeing across the state. He was later found sleeping in her blue Ford Fusion on a highway in San Juan County, where he was initially arrested for driving while intoxicated before investigators linked him to the murder.
The tragedy is the culmination of a decade-long Santa Fe mental health system failure, characterized by a revolving door of arrests and dismissals. Court records reveal a pattern where Roybal was repeatedly found mentally incompetent to stand trial, leading prosecutors to dismiss charges—even as his behavior grew more violent and his mother’s fear intensified.
Now held in the Santa Fe County jail, Roybal faces charges of first-degree murder, assault, and tampering with evidence. But for those who knew the family, the charges are a grim postscript to a systemic collapse that occurred in plain sight.
A decade of warnings
The instability began early. Hope Roybal, Deven’s sister, describes him as a problematic child who frequently escalated conflicts into violence. By the time he was a teenager, the behavior had intensified. in one instance, he trashed the family home during a psychiatric episode.
At 18, Deven was diagnosed with schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder. The family’s attempts to get him professional help began in earnest when he was 15. At the time, his father, James Roybal, petitioned for a restraining order, stating that Deven had left his younger sister bruised and that the girl was terrified of her brother. The court declined the order, directing the parents to handle the matter through their divorce and custody proceedings.
As Deven entered adulthood, the violence shifted toward his mother. When he was 19, he was charged with battery on a household member. Vigil told deputies she did not wish to press charges, but she emphasized that her son needed urgent help.
By age 20, the situation had reached a breaking point. During one incident, Roybal brandished a guitar as a weapon before breaking it. A sheriff’s deputy noted in a statement of probable cause that when asked if she felt safe in her home, Vigil answered, “No.”
The cycle of incompetency
It was during that period of escalation that Roybal’s defense attorney first raised the issue of mental competency. The court found him incompetent to stand trial, and the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office dismissed the case. This became the blueprint for the next several years.
Roybal would be arrested for property crimes or violence—including attacks on staff at mental health facilities—only to be found incompetent and released. In 2023, he was charged with battery after allegedly punching a nurse five times in the head at the New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute in Las Vegas, the state’s only state-operated psychiatric hospital. While he eventually pleaded guilty to battery on a peace officer and received probation, the underlying mental health crisis remained unaddressed.
The legal process for mentally ill defendants in New Mexico often follows a rigid path that critics say prioritizes legal processing over clinical safety. If a defendant is declared incompetent, the court must determine if they are “dangerous.” If they are not found dangerous, the case is dismissed. If they are, they can be committed for “restoration to competency.”
| Finding | Legal Outcome | Clinical Result |
|---|---|---|
| Incompetent & Not Dangerous | Case Dismissed | Release to community/family |
| Incompetent & Dangerous | Commitment | Up to 9 months at state hospital |
| Restored to Competency | Prosecution Resumes | Treatment concluded; trial proceeds |
| Remains Incompetent | Hearing on Danger | Potential long-term locked detention |
Despite the mounting evidence of Roybal’s volatility, records suggest that neither the First nor Fourth Judicial District Attorney’s Offices raised formal concerns about his “dangerousness” until February 25, 2026—less than a month before his mother’s death. On that day, Judge Abigail Aragon issued an order finding him incompetent and “Dangerous,” noting that two doctors recommended civil commitment.
The former home of Jennifer Vigil is shown Saturday. She was stabbed in late March at the house in Rancho Viejo, allegedly by her son, Deven Roybal.
Infrastructure vs. Framework
New Mexico has attempted to modernize its approach to behavioral health. The state introduced “competency diversion” programs designed to move defendants off the criminal track and into treatment. These programs utilize “navigators” to help patients discover housing and adhere to medication schedules.
However, advocates argue these programs exist primarily on paper. While the legislature provided $100 million for a behavioral health trust fund in 2025, the on-the-ground resources remain scarce. In the First Judicial District, which serves Santa Fe, Rio Arriba, and Los Alamos counties, the funding has provided only one program manager and a single court navigator.
Maggie Shepard, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Law Offices of the Public Defender, noted that while an intellectual framework for care was created, the infrastructure was not. Public defender Tess Williams added that the state lacks community-based competency restoration programs, leaving a “empty pathway” for those who are incompetent but not deemed dangerous enough for the state hospital.
For Jennifer Vigil, this gap meant the burden of care fell entirely on her. Her daughter, Hope, recalls her mother going “above and beyond” to manage Deven’s care, often fighting insurance companies or treatment facilities that refused to admit him. “My mom was the one dealing with him, and that’s a lot of mental and physical abuse on her as a mom,” Hope said. “And no one was helping her.”
The final escalation
The months leading up to the tragedy were marked by a flurry of activity. In 2025, Roybal was accused of a wide array of crimes, including breaking into his father’s house with a pickax, threatening a man with brass knuckles, and battering his mother twice. Most of these cases were dismissed due to incompetency or failures in prosecution.
In October 2025, a probation officer reported that Roybal stated he was “going to kill his mother again” while she was sitting right next to him in an office. Despite this explicit threat, and despite a subsequent transfer to the Behavioral Health Institute, Roybal was eventually released. Between January and March 2026, emergency responders were dispatched to Vigil’s home at least five times for psychiatric incidents and domestic disturbances.
On March 22, 2026, Vigil’s body was discovered. Investigators believe Roybal had killed her the previous day. He was later apprehended in San Juan County; size 12 Nike Foamposite shoes found in his possession matched prints left at the crime scene.
This case highlights the precarious balance between the rights of the mentally ill and the safety of the community. As the legal proceedings against Deven Roybal move forward, the tragedy serves as a stark reminder of the cost of a fragmented safety net.
Disclaimer: This article contains information regarding legal proceedings and mental health diagnoses. It is intended for informational purposes and does not constitute legal or medical advice.
If you or a loved one is struggling with a mental health crisis, help is available. You can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 in the U.S. And Canada.
The next scheduled legal action for Deven Roybal will involve further competency evaluations to determine if he can stand trial for the first-degree murder charges. Updates will be provided as court filings become public.
We invite readers to share their thoughts on behavioral health reforms in the comments below or share this story to raise awareness about mental health infrastructure.
Keep reading
