Thirty years to the day after 52-year-old Herman Higgs was beaten to death on Santa Fe's north side, police on Friday morning confirmed that they interviewed a former sheriff's deputy whom they are calling "a person of interest" in the case.

Police say they believe Higgs, a Navy veteran of both Korea and Vietnam, was killed because he was gay.

"If we had a statute on the books then defining hate crimes, this would definitely be considered a hate crime," Santa Fe police Lt. Louis Carlos said. "This was not a robbery. There were valuable items left on Mr. Higgs' person at the scene. ... We believe that this case was because of his sexuality."

Santa Fe police on Friday morning questioned Clarence Garcia, 51, about his knowledge of Higgs' death, but would not comment on what Garcia told detectives or even if he acknowledged knowing Higgs. Garcia was not charged with any crime Friday.

Garcia, who spent last fall coaching the Monte del Sol Charter School varsity girls soccer team and was a popular heavyweight boxer in the 1990s while also working as a cop, did not return a phone message left from The New Mexican seeking comment.

Police confirmed Friday that "other persons who have direct knowledge of Garcia's involvement" in the beating death have come forward in recent months, leading to the resurrection of the cold case file that had otherwise been forgotten in police archives.

DNA collected from the crime scene and from Higgs' autopsy will be re-examined, Carlos said. "There is technology available to us now that we didn't have in 1982, but we preserved all the evidence and hope that will help us solve this case now," Carlos said.

The New Mexican has been researching the 1982 killing for the better part of the past month after learning of the recent break in the case, but attempts to reach a member of Higgs' family have been unsuccessful.

'He couldn't hurt a fly'

According to Higgs' 1982 obituary, his mother lived in Cleveland and he had an uncle in Miami.

He moved to Santa Fe around 1970.

"He decided to stay here [in Santa Fe] because of the people, the three cultures," Pete Jimenez, a friend of Higgs and the former chairman of the American GI Forum's Santa Fe chapter, told The New Mexican in 1982.

Higgs was a College of Santa Fe graduate who served in the Navy in both Vietnam and Korea and is buried at the Santa Fe National Cemetery. He was active in the college's veterans club and majored in social work, according to the 1978 College of Santa Fe yearbook.

Higgs was a frequent patron of the Fraternal Order of Police and, according to The New Mexican's article, he often played pool and poker with officers there. About a week before his death, Higgs told Jimenez that the cops quit playing him because he was too good.

"He told me they put the word out on him at the FOP," Jimenez told The New Mexican.

Jimenez also said that Higgs was "100 percent disabled," but it is unclear what exactly that disability was.

"He was never in trouble," Jimenez told the newspaper. "He never harassed anybody. There ought to be some justice for him. ... The police need to find out who did it."

The investigation

Santa Fe police found a severely beaten Higgs lying in a remote area just off Artists Road, a quarter mile from the Fort Marcy complex, around 8:30 a.m. June 1, 1982. He died while being transported to the hospital, according to newspaper archives.

Police at the time say he was seen at the Fraternal Order of Police at 12:30 a.m. and then seen by an officer near Alameda and Galisteo streets at 3 a.m. June 1.

While there were reports Higgs was known to carry a large amount of cash with him because of his fondness of gambling on pool and poker, Carlos on Friday said investigators at the time found valuables with Higgs' body, ruling out robbery as a motive in the killing.

A July 24, 1982, CrimeStoppers article published in The New Mexican sheds some light on those early theories and offers a physical description of a man police said they wanted to question.

"Detectives say they think Higgs, a homosexual, picked up a man in the city, then drove to a lovers' lane above Fort Marcy, where the man beat Higgs to death," states the 1982 newspaper article.

A man who described a similar scenario to investigators gave the following description of a man that police then released to the public: "The man wanted for questioning is described as a Spanish male, 17 or 18 years old, black hair, medium complexion, clean-shaven with thick eyebrows and dark eyes."

Police would not say whether the man who provided that information has been contacted since the recent news broke in the case, nor would detectives identify that man.

Garcia's fighting history

Investigators aren't saying whether Higgs and Garcia, who was not a sheriff's deputy at the time of the 1982 homicide, knew each other.

What is clear is that Garcia has a long history of fighting -- both in the ring and out.

Garcia's many prize fights in Northern New Mexico were frequently covered by the press, and he was popular among area fans.

After knocking out Albuquerque's Gilbert Martinez in less than 90 seconds of a February 1997 bout, the heavy-hitting Garcia told The New Mexican, "I went under, caught him with an uppercut. I think I broke his jaw."

But his fights weren't confined to the ring. Garcia had two battery convictions in the 1990s while he was a deputy, and a third case in which the county settled with a man who said Garcia battered him at the First Judicial District Courthouse.

Garcia was charged with a felony after a 1995 fight in Carlsbad involving several off-duty officers at a nightclub there. He and other officers were in Carlsbad attending an anti-drug conference and were arrested as a result of the fight. Garcia later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor battery charge and was allowed to keep his job as a deputy.

In January 1998, Garcia was accused of beating two young men found in a motel room with his teenage daughter. He told The New Mexican that he did what any father would do and was only trying to protect his daughter. He later resigned from the Sheriff's Department in February 1998 and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of aggravated battery stemming from that case in October 1998.

Also in 1998, Santa Fe County settled with a man for $19,000 after he claimed Garcia, then a deputy working security at the First Judicial District Courthouse, battered him and unlawfully arrested him after the man called Garcia a "pompous ass."

Since Garcia's 1998 resignation, he has remained close with many in the law enforcement community, and his Facebook page shows friendships with dozens of Santa Fe-area politicians and former police officers.

Last fall, Garcia was named the District 2A-AAA girls soccer coach of the year after taking over coaching duties of the Lady Dragons midseason and leading the team to a 10-8-1 overall record.

Next step

Carlos would not say what is next in the investigation after Friday's interview with Garcia, and it is unclear if the man has hired an attorney.

While police say DNA testing is being utilized in the case, they would not say specifically what is being tested or how long it will take for the results to be returned.

In the meantime, according to Carlos, police are still hoping to talk with others who might have knowledge of the Higgs homicide -- either from 1982 or from people his killer may have spoken to about the incident over the years.

Police ask anyone with information on the case to call Detective Julian Martinez at 955-5177.

Digital News Editor Geoff Grammer can be reached at ggrammer@sfnewmexican.com or follow him on Twitter @GeoffGrammer.