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When a Costilla County resident discovered a human skull, teeth, and scattered bones on his property in the fall of 2024, he did what any person would do: he called the sheriff. What happened next was not what anyone would expect. According to a grand jury indictment, Sheriff Danny Sanchez showed up to the scene, stayed briefly, and spent his time looking for arrowheads rather than investigating human remains. That decision, and everything that followed, has now resulted in half of a rural Colorado sheriff’s department being indicted on criminal charges.
A Small Department With a Big Problem
Costilla County sits just north of the New Mexico border in southern Colorado, a remote stretch of the San Luis Valley with a sheriff’s office that employs just seven law enforcement officials in total. Five of those seven now face criminal indictments handed down on the same Friday, covering two separate incidents involving two different sets of victims. The charges range from official misconduct and abuse of a corpse to felony assault against a person in mental health crisis. District Attorney Anne Kelly announced the indictments at a news conference, saying she would not ignore violations of public trust regardless of who committed them.
The Skull in a Grocery Bag
After the sheriff and his deputy, Keith Schultz, responded to the property where remains were found, they collected the skull and left the rest of the bones behind. The skull was later delivered to the coroner’s office in what the indictment described as a used paper grocery bag with no markings, no labels, no date, no location information, no collector identification, and no seals to protect the integrity of the evidence. It was the opposite of standard forensic procedure, a chain of custody so incomplete that it raised immediate questions about whether any prosecution tied to those remains could ever succeed in court.
The Case Was Closed Before It Began
The resident who found the remains followed up with the sheriff’s office to check on the investigation’s progress. He was told the case had been closed. When he requested the police report, he discovered it had been written on December 31, 2024. Nearly three months after the remains were originally discovered. That delay alone signaled something was wrong. The resident eventually contacted the 12th Judicial District Attorney’s Office directly on August 18, 2025. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation returned to the property the very next day and collected the bones that had been left behind almost a year earlier.
The Charges Against Sanchez and Schultz
Former Sheriff Danny Sanchez, 63, resigned following the indictment. He and former deputy Keith Schultz, 45, who had already resigned the previous fall, each face four counts of official misconduct and one count of abuse of a corpse. The abuse of a corpse charge stems directly from the mishandling of human remains — a charge that carries serious legal weight and reflects what prosecutors viewed as a fundamental failure to treat the discovery with even basic professional and legal standards. No court date had been set for Schultz as of the announcement, while Sanchez was due in court Wednesday morning.
A Second Incident, A Second Set of Charges
While the remains case was unfolding, a separate incident inside the sheriff’s department itself was also moving toward indictment. A man experiencing a mental health crisis at the sheriff’s office was subjected to Taser deployment by two deputies: Sergeant Caleb Sanchez, 25, the sheriff’s own son, and Deputy Roland Riley, 31. The incident was not reported to the sheriff. It was not documented. No use-of-force investigation was ever opened. The event might have remained entirely hidden had it not eventually surfaced through the broader investigation that followed.
The Undersheriff Who Watched and Said Nothing
Standing beside the two deputies as they deployed their Tasers on the man in mental health crisis was Undersheriff Cruz Soto, 43. According to the indictment’s affidavit, Soto was present throughout and did nothing to intervene. He faces charges of third-degree assault, two counts of failure to report use of force, and four counts of official misconduct. His role in the incident captures a pattern visible across both cases: not just active wrongdoing, but a culture of silence, inaction, and a shared understanding within the department that certain things would not be reported or investigated.
The Charges Facing the Younger Officers
Caleb Sanchez and Riley each face the most serious individual charges stemming from the Taser incident. Both were charged with second-degree assault, a felony, and third-degree assault, a misdemeanor. Second-degree assault in Colorado carries significant prison time if convicted. The fact that Caleb Sanchez is the former sheriff’s son adds a layer of complexity to the case raising questions about whether the department’s culture of non-reporting was shaped, at least in part, by the assumption that certain people within its walls were insulated from consequences.
A County Left Without Leadership
Following Sanchez’s resignation and the indictments placing three officers on administrative leave, Costilla County found itself with a sheriff’s office in crisis. An emergency meeting of county commissioners was called on Monday to appoint Joe Smith, a current department employee, as temporary sheriff. The arrangement is a stopgap. Voters will choose a permanent replacement at the November election. The district attorney’s message at the news conference was pointed: no citizen of the San Luis Valley should have any doubt about the integrity of their police force, a standard this department, by any measure, had failed to meet.
When the People Meant to Protect You Become the Problem
What happened in Costilla County is not just a story about one careless sheriff or one mishandled crime scene. It is a story about what happens when accountability disappears inside an institution. Human remains went uncollected for nearly a year. A vulnerable man was Tasered with no documentation and no consequences. Reports were written months late or not at all. In a department of seven people, five are now facing criminal charges. The system did not catch any of this from the inside, a resident did, by refusing to accept that a closed case was actually closed.