Most New Mexicans did not know the name of 6-year-old Estrella Shay Fernandez until about a month after she died in April.
The New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department — and the Taos County Sheriff’s Office — refused to identify the Vadita girl in the days immediately following her suspicious death. CYFD cited unspecified “privacy laws,” and a sheriff’s office detective said it is “not a common practice to disclose names or date of births on anybody who’s a juvenile, especially a victim.”
Estrella was originally thought to have died from an overdose on narcotics, although investigators later found she had not ingested drugs and a charge of child abuse resulting in death against her mother was later dropped. Her death is still under investigation.
CYFD, as well as some law enforcement agencies investigating tragic incidents in which children are killed, have continued to provide inconsistent responses to requests from the news media and the public for them to identify the kids. The obscurity in such situations has persisted despite the implementation of a 2025 law, enacted by Senate Bill 42, which requires the state to release a significant amount of information about deceased children, including their names — information lawmakers and others argue is critical to preventing similar tragic incidents.
“We know that transparency around fatalities of children in state custody is critical because accountability does not happen in the dark, and we cannot fix a problem we cannot see,” Sen. Katy Duhigg, an Albuquerque Democrat who spearheaded the legislation demanding more transparency from the state in such situations, wrote in a statement on Friday.
She added, “It is essential that families’ and children’s privacy rights are protected, but this is government using the pretense of privacy as a shield against sunshine, and that’s unacceptable.”
CYFD spokesperson Jake Thompson wrote in an email that since the passage of SB 42, the agency can “respond more thoroughly to media requests.” However, he added that can only happen when information like a child’s name has already been released to the public by law enforcement agencies or through other means. Those agencies, though, have differing practices on the issue.
Thompson also argued that not disclosing the names of children who have died helps to protect their privacy, and that publicly identifying them has little value in holding adults accountable.
“What stops the department from disclosing these names is common decency, a desire to not compound the suffering of grieving families and a belief that innocent children have an innate right to privacy,” he wrote. “Sharing the name serves no investigative or accountability purpose.”
Thompson added, “Beyond the legal limits, the department’s position is that a child’s name is not necessary to hold accountable the adults responsible for their deaths. What public good is served by disclosing a deceased child’s name, when the alleged perpetrators who contributed to or caused the child’s death are named, prosecuted, and held to account for their crimes?”
Reform effort
SB 42, approved by lawmakers during last year’s 60-day legislative session, was a sweeping package designed to reform the state’s child welfare system. It included a provision that requires CYFD to release much more information about child fatalities, including names, ages, genders, causes of death, and the date and location of death.
That bill, which went into effect in June 2025, came amid concerns from lawmakers and other state officials that the state has used confidentiality laws to shield itself from scrutiny.
The New Mexico Department of Justice, for example, has argued that CYFD could — and should — release much more information about fatal incidents involving children than it does. The Justice Department has also generally criticized the agency’s secrecy, arguing it abuses confidentiality laws.
“That department has been misapplying, misinterpreting and abusing confidentiality as a way to shield adults in positions of power and as a weapon of retaliation, and that is going to come to an end,” Attorney General Raúl Torrez said in an April news conference.
Still, CYFD has maintained that it follows state statute, specifically SB 42, in determining what it can and cannot disclose.
Duhigg said the bill has a loophole inserted late in the legislative process that makes many records related to child abuse or neglect proceedings automatically confidential, with few exceptions. Those exceptions, which include that CYFD should release redacted information to someone who is conducting “bona fide research or investigations” that could be useful to the department in developing policy or practice, are then often rejected by the agency, Duhigg said.
That section of the bill was added “in the 11th hour and essentially undid the point of that part of the bill,” she wrote, adding she intends to introduce a bill in the next legislative session to close the loophole.
Local law enforcement
CYFD has also argued the release of names of children who have died is up to enforcement agencies responding to the incidents.
Those agencies, however, vary in how they handle that information’s disclosure.
Albuquerque police spokesperson Gilbert Gallegos said that agency typically identifies children who are murdered or killed as a result of abuse or neglect. He noted, though, that was more practice than written policy.
Ben Valdez, interim chief of the Santa Fe Police Department, wrote in an email the agency would first inform a child’s next of kin, as it would do in other situations where someone has died.
But ultimately, he said, “We would release the name, gender and age of the child.”
The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, however, has denied requests by The New Mexican to identify children who have died on at least two occasions over the past year.
Spokesperson Jayme Gonzales wrote in an email the agency “does not routinely identify minor victims in public statements, including cases involving the death of a child.” Decisions about whether to identify children in such instances are made on a case-by-case basis, she said.
Gonzales added that the agency considers factors, such as whether the children’s next of kin have been informed of the death, the family’s wishes, investigative or public safety needs and whether the child has already been identified through court filings.
“In cases involving child victims, especially fatal cases, BCSO generally avoids making the child’s identity the focus of a public release unless there is a clear public safety, investigative, or legal reason to do so,” Gonzales wrote. “Families may choose to release that information themselves or speak directly with media, but BCSO tries to balance transparency with the privacy and dignity of the child and family.”
