May 31—An Albuquerque woman is accused of raking in more than $18,000 by reselling vehicles and guns stolen from a dead man’s home in the South Valley.

Sarah Sanchez, also known as Sarah Salinas, 35, is charged with nine counts of fraud; receiving stolen property; two counts of fraudulently obtaining a vehicle; two counts of receiving or transferring a stolen vehicle; and two counts of forgery.

Albuquerque police say Salinas forged a notary stamp and the dead man’s signature on multiple documents to transfer a $50,000 truck and $22,000 car into her and her boyfriend’s names. Authorities say she also sold several guns stolen from the man’s home to a Cabela’s outdoor store.

Sanchez was arrested on Thursday after a warrant had been issued for her arrest on May 14, according to court records. She has since been released to pretrial services.

It is unclear who her attorney is.

Terri Summers, of Kansas, said she hadn’t talked to her brother Michael Potter since December.

“He was kind of a reclusive person. We talked to him at Christmas,” she told the Journal. After Potter died on Jan. 24, she said, the Office of the Medical Investigator couldn’t find his relatives.

Summers said they learned of her brother’s death only after his truck was reported stolen, when deputies reached out, “or we wouldn’t have even known that he passed away.”

By then, Potter’s house had already been burglarized once on Feb. 7.

At about 9:40 a.m. Feb. 15, Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a burglary in progress at a vacant home in the 200 block of Lagunitas SW, near Second. A neighbor told deputies she saw two women load “large bags of items” from the home into a pickup.

The woman told deputies she confronted the women and parked behind their truck to block their escape, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. She said the women got into the truck — which deputies later learned belonged to Potter — and rammed her vehicle to flee the area.

Deputies went into the home and found it had been “ransacked,” and a large safe was pried open with a large amount of ammunition stacked by the door, according to the complaint. Relatives later told deputies 30 firearms were missing from the safe.

Seven days later, Albuquerque police found Potter’s stolen truck and had it taken to a tow yard.

On April 10, police took over the investigation and discovered that the home had been burglarized twice within a month of Potter’s death and that, in addition to the truck, an RV and car had been stolen.

Police said witnesses told them the RV was stolen by people posing “as repossession agents.” Both the RV and car had been found abandoned within weeks of being stolen and were taken to a tow yard.

Detectives discovered both the car and truck had been retitled and picked up from the tow yards by the new owner, according to the complaint. Police found documents transferring the car’s title to Sanchez and the truck to her boyfriend, both with a notary stamp.

Police said the documents had Potter’s signature but were dated after his death.

Detectives spoke with the notary whose stamp and signature were on the forged documents and she told them she had not notarized those documents and had never given her stamp to anyone, according to the complaint. Detectives also found out Sanchez had sold seven guns stolen from Potter’s home to Cabela’s in Northeast Albuquerque.

Police said on April 26, Sanchez’s mother called 911 to report her daughter threatening her over an $18,000 check from Carmax that Sanchez asked for help cashing. A week later, Sanchez cashed the $18,000 check, and police found Potter’s car on sale in California.

Detectives discovered Sanchez had sold the car, a 2018 Subaru, to Carmax in Albuquerque, who then sold it to a wholesaler, according to the complaint. Detectives began to stake out Sanchez’s home and spotted Potter’s truck, a 2020 Dodge Ram, in the driveway.