Court records and local reporting say the criminal case is now tied to questions about the defendant’s competency.
FLORA VISTA, N.M. — A New Mexico father accused of killing his 11-month-old son during a walk near his home is facing a stayed criminal case after investigators said they found the baby’s body partly buried in dirt in a remote area west of Flora Vista.
Authorities say the case matters now because newer court filings and broadcast reporting added detail to what investigators believe happened to the child and where the prosecution stands. John Hannon, 43, was charged in February with child abuse resulting in death and tampering with evidence after deputies found his son, John Teigue “JJ” Hannon, dead near a ditch. Since then, a judge has moved the case onto a competency track, pausing the ordinary path toward trial while the court considers whether Hannon can proceed.
The investigation began late on the night of Feb. 8, when Krystal Phillips, the child’s mother, called for a welfare check after she had not seen JJ for about a day. According to investigators, Phillips said she last saw the baby on Feb. 7 when Hannon left with JJ and an older sibling for a walk to a nearby Dollar General. Hannon came back without the infant and told Phillips that a grandparent had taken the child to Colorado, officers said. Phillips told investigators she feared something bad had happened and asked Hannon to call his mother to prove where the baby was, but the affidavit says he refused. Around the same time, deputies connected her report to a separate tip from a homeowner whose security cameras had shown a man pushing a stroller through a remote area off New Mexico Highway 516. Officers found the stroller discarded in a ditch, then went to the RV where Hannon was staying. Deputies said he did not come out, so they forced entry and found him hiding under a blanket on a bed.
Search teams worked through the night and returned after daybreak on Feb. 9. Shortly before 10 a.m., deputies found the baby’s body in the same rural area where the stroller had been seen and recovered. Investigators later wrote that JJ’s head and left arm were buried in dirt while the rest of his body remained exposed. They also said they found Hannon’s shoe prints at the scene and clothing tied to both Hannon and the baby in the search area. During questioning, officers said Hannon gave conflicting answers about where JJ was. KOB reported that when an investigator asked, “Why is JJ missing? Is he hurt?” Hannon answered, “Yes, he’s hurt bad.” Later, when officers pressed him on whether he had left the baby there because he knew the child was dead, investigators said Hannon replied, “Yeah, yeah.” Court records cited by local outlets say he also told detectives, “I knew he was dead.” Those statements became central pieces of the case because they appeared to place him with the child in the final hours and because they came after an account that deputies say was false.
Medical findings added the most disturbing detail. According to court documents described by KOB and regional newspapers, a doctor with the Office of the Medical Investigator found that JJ suffered a skull fracture and had dirt in his airway. Investigators wrote that those findings suggested the baby may have still been alive when he was buried. The affidavit also described an abrasion on the child’s forehead before death. Authorities have publicly said the manner of death was homicide. They have not publicly laid out a fuller motive, and the available reporting does not answer every question about what happened between the walk on Feb. 7 and the search the next morning. The security video cited by the sheriff showed a man with a stroller in the area, but it did not make clear from the footage alone whether a child was inside at that moment. That left detectives to rely on the physical scene, the timing of the missing-child report, the interview with Hannon and the autopsy findings to piece together the final timeline. Sheriff Shane Ferrari said after charges were filed, “There is no greater evil than individuals who hurt and kill children,” calling the death the kind of case that weighs heavily on deputies and detectives.
The broader record around the family also became part of the public picture as the case moved into court. Regional coverage based on court files says Hannon had faced domestic-violence-related charges in 2024 and was discharged from probation unsatisfactorily after serving 84 days in jail. Records reviewed by local reporters said Phillips had earlier sought a domestic violence order of protection for herself and her children, but the petition was dismissed after she did not appear in court. A spokesman for New Mexico’s Children, Youth and Families Department also confirmed that the agency had prior involvement with the family. Those details do not explain JJ’s death, but they have shaped the arguments around detention and public concern over how the family’s earlier troubles were handled. The sheriff used the case to criticize the criminal justice system, saying it reflected broader failures before the child’s death. Public records also show Hannon was arrested on unrelated charges tied to a Jan. 31 crash in which he was accused of driving under the influence of drugs and tampering with evidence. That separate case is distinct from JJ’s death, but it helps explain why deputies already had other warrants and charges in play when they took him into custody.
The prosecution formally took shape on Feb. 11, when the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office said Hannon was served at the county detention center with first-degree felony child abuse resulting in death and second-degree felony tampering with evidence. The San Juan County District Attorney’s Office then sought to keep him in custody before trial because of the severity of the allegations and his criminal history. But the case soon took an unusual procedural path. One district judge recused himself the same day the charges were filed. Three more judges later stepped aside, and the matter was eventually transferred to District Judge Bradley Keeler in Gallup. At a Feb. 24 detention hearing, defense attorney Nicole Hall indicated she wanted to raise competency concerns. She filed a motion the next day seeking a forensic evaluation and wrote that she had a good-faith belief Hannon might not be competent to stand trial because he did not understand the charges and had apparent memory issues. On March 3, Keeler stayed the criminal case and moved it to the competency docket. More recent KOB reporting said Hannon was due back in court the following week, and a New Mexico court schedule listed him before Keeler in Gallup on March 30. The latest public reports reviewed did not describe the result of that setting, leaving the case, at least publicly, centered on whether it can move forward toward trial.
For people in the Flora Vista area, the physical setting has remained part of the shock. The search unfolded in open country between Aztec and Farmington, in a stretch of San Juan County marked by dirt roads, scattered homes and drainage ditches rather than busy streets. What first drew attention, according to the sheriff, was not a 911 call from the scene but a resident’s unease after seeing a man with a stroller move through a remote patch of land. That image of an empty stroller in a ditch became one of the case’s clearest symbols as officers tried to work backward and learn where JJ had gone. Deputies, detectives and searchers stayed out overnight and into the morning, then shifted from hope to homicide investigation when they found the child. Ferrari publicly thanked those responders for “the long hours worked” and said many people will never understand the toll such cases take. The county at first withheld the baby’s name out of respect for the family, a sign of how closely the case touched a small community where the search area and the home were not far apart. The public record now lays out more of what prosecutors think happened, but the deepest questions, including why JJ was killed, still have not been answered in open court.
As of Wednesday, the homicide case against Hannon remained pending, but its next major step depended on the court’s handling of the competency issue. Public reporting shows the charges still stand, and the next milestone is a court ruling or updated hearing that decides whether the case can resume on a normal criminal track.
Author note: Last updated April 1, 2026.