Monica Mares has been arrested again, this time for allegedly breaking into an elderly woman’s home in Clovis, New Mexico.
Mares, 36, was taken into custody on Sunday after allegedly vandalizing and stealing from a 66-year-old homeowner’s property while the woman was out of town, according to Clovis Police Department Captain Roman Romero.
The arrest marks the latest legal trouble for Mares, whose incestuous affair with her biological son Caleb Peterson, then 19, made national headlines in 2016.
Mares allegedly stole new kitchen countertops and light fixtures from the home, according to police.
She also allegedly flooded the property and yard by turning on the water.
When officers caught her, Mares bizarrely claimed she had broken in because “she had no place to go, and that the weather, thunder and lightning, gave her headaches,” Capt. Romero said.
A neighbor spotted the alleged break-in and called the homeowner’s best friend in Texas, where the elderly woman is currently staying.
Virginia Pritchett, 69, soon learned about Mares’s criminal past.
“I’ve seen articles on Mares; she torched a home and set fire to a backyard while on meth. She’s a thief who has broken into homes like my friend’s before,” Pritchett said.
The homeowner, who lives on just $900 a month, has been broken into three times in the last three to four months.
Pritchett believes Mares is responsible for each incident.
“It’s too coincidental,” she said.
“The neighbor said she saw the gate wide open in the back, which is what happened before, and she said she saw a light shining and saw them in the laundry room… They knew exactly where to go,” Pritchett continued.
“They knew what kind of tool to take. According to the police, they just unscrewed what the handyman had done, and unscrewed the locks and everything,” she added.
Pritchett was planning to move into the home to support her friend once renovations were complete.
“I helped her when some pretty bad things happened in her life, and we’ve stayed best friends. And that’s what we do, you know, we help one another out,” she said.
After the string of break-ins, Pritchett said her friend “started being afraid to live there. And quite honestly, so was I… What if we’re living there and somebody breaks in and has a gun or something?”
“The scary thing, of course, among the obvious is that these people had obviously been watching that house,” she added.
Pritchett is now helping her friend press charges against Mares.
“It seems to me that the justice system is not doing enough to punish this woman. And it just keeps going on. I’m mad as hell at her right now,” Pritchett said.
“She needs to be sitting in an institution, wherever that is… I’m going to call the District Attorney and see where this goes,” she continued.
Mares has reportedly been living homeless in Clovis in recent years.
She is currently being held in the Curry County Adult Detention Center, according to Capt. Romero.
In the viral moment that first brought her notoriety, Mares and Peterson were arrested in August 2016 and charged with incest after police discovered their sexual relationship. Mares had given Peterson up for adoption when she was 16, and the two reconnected on Facebook 18 years later. They quickly fell in love and moved in together. The relationship came to light after a neighbor dispute in January 2016 led police to the truth. The pair entered no-contest pleas in March 2017 and were sentenced to three years’ probation, plus a ban on contacting each other.
Mares has had multiple run-ins with the law since that 2016 arrest.