world ceased to exist for them. They saw no danger in this; they couldn’t predict the precarious future which satisfying their every desire would make a reality. While ecstatic and in love, Paul was beginning to become isolated from his friends, but he didn’t really care. Outside of Monica, he didn’t want to be with anyone else. Their isolation was the first sign of trouble. Neither knew it.
It was Valentine’s Day 1986 when Paul and Monica married. He didn’t care that some of her family members didn’t like him and referred to him as a “gringo,” a racist slur some Hispanics use to describe Anglo people. If Monica noticed, she did nothing to stop this. And Paul was so high on his new life that he didn’t care.
Every Sunday Monica visited her parents at their home. After they were married, Paul was expected to go with her or show up there after work. Each time, he noticed the nasty looks her brother and sisters gave him. They treated him like a second-class citizen. They spoke Spanish, which he didn’t understand, around him all the time to let him know he wasn’t wanted.
Sometimes Jerry, Diane and Theresa glared at him; at others they ignored him. There was never a welcoming, “Hi, how are you?” but an implicit dismissal: Go about your business. You might be here, but we don’t have to acknowledge you.
Her siblings never gave Paul a chance. But Monica’s parents, Dora and Torry Sanchez, as well as Monica’s Uncle Clyde, treated Paul well and Paul loved them.
After Paul and Monica married, she kept her job as a municipal court clerk and Paul remained a police officer. Soon he took a second job as a security guard for former Governor Tom Bolack. He had to. Monica shopped at exclusive stores. She wouldn’t be caught dead at stores like K-Mart, according to one police officer’s wife. She dressed better than some attorneys’ wives did, although Paul didn’t make as much money, even with two jobs. Even when she went to a very casual event like a baseball game she was “dressed to the nines” while other women wore shorts or jeans.
Paul wanted to please Monica more than anything. One day, Paul put a $250 muslin jumpsuit on layaway for her at Mary Murphin’s, an exclusive boutique.
“That was a lot of money for me to spend for one jumpsuit,” Paul admitted. “Oh, but she looked fantastic in it.”
To work first at the court and then at the bail bond office for an admiring boss, Monica wore pant suits, jumpsuits—she dressed professionally. She didn’t dress provocatively, but no matter what she put on, men found her irresistible. Paul didn’t care how much money he spent on his wife’s wardrobe and ego. Whatever Monica wanted, he gave her. He saw her as a sweet, loving, passionate woman. They laughed together, spent many good times together and loved each other. He found her passion for life irresistible.
Two years into their marriage, Paul and Monica planned for a home, a child and all the dreams of young love. They weren’t really trying to have a baby, but the news that Monica was pregnant was a cause for them to celebrate—they were on a roll.
Monica glowed through her pregnancy despite six weeks of wretched morning sickness and the inevitable weight gain. Paul wouldn’t have believed it possible, but to him pregnancy made Monica even more beautiful. It can’t get any better than this! Paul kept thinking. Paul didn’t know that Monica secretly was set on never having another baby. She wasn’t going to ruin her body with stretch marks.
The labor was long and protracted, but Monica’s face glowed when she held little Diane Dunn on September 3, 1988, a few months after Paul and Monica’s second wedding anniversary. Such plans they had for that little picture of perfection. She was their princess.
Paul soon learned that, to Monica, the baby was more a doll to be played with than a living child with needs of its own. Paul was the one to wake up with Diane in the middle of the night, soothe Diane’s upsets and change her “crappy” diapers. Monica’s delicate nature couldn’t handle the sleeplessness, smell and mess. Paul couldn’t have known then that he would eventually do all the vacuuming, dish washing, laundry and work two jobs. He just knew he was happier than he had ever been. His ladies, those two beautiful faces. What did I do to be rewarded with such a blessing? Paul asked himself over and over. He knew he would work as hard as he needed to without ever complaining if only he could keep them. He would do anything.
In late 1988, after Diane’s birth, Paul joined a school program known as Adopt-a-Cop, formed by the Country Club Elementary School’s Parent-Teacher Organization president, Sharon Lee. She and her husband, Larry, became and stayed good friends with Paul. Paul worked as an “adopted cop” for kindergarten, first, third and fifth grade classes over the next several years. He photographed eager students sitting on his motorcycle and even played basketball and volleyball with students during his off-duty time. He also wrote traffic tickets in the thousands during that time. Scrupulous to obeying the rules, he felt when someone broke the law on his watch the person had to be punished. When the department issued trading cards with police officers’ pictures, Paul’s card was popular and collectible. Many times he was the guest speaker at Farmington schools and the Fox School of Driving. His expertise in accident investigation was called upon by the state police, the San Juan County Sheriff’s Department and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The night his second daughter, Racquel, was conceived is forever etched into Paul’s memory. It was the night their home burned to the ground, igniting their possessions and their dreams as the couple watched helplessly. They stayed at Monica’s parents’ home. That night, despite their losses, they made ecstatic, joyful love for the first time since their first daughter Diane’s birth.
But three months later, when Monica learned she was pregnant again, she was filled with an unquenchable fury at Paul, at her condition, at their life. She balked at another pregnancy so soon after Diane’s birth. No, she wouldn’t stand for her body growing huge and clumsy again. Monica wanted an abortion. Paul wouldn’t even discuss it, the idea of the life they created being murdered, as he saw abortion, was abhorrent. Monica saw it as a sane way out. Usually the one who gave in, this time Paul refused. A grumbling, ever-complaining Monica prepared for the morning sickness and weight gain of childbirth for the second time in less than a year.
In one sense, Paul may have won the battle, but he lost the war. To get Monica to agree to go through with the pregnancy, he agreed to have a vasectomy so they would never have another child.
Seven months into her pregnancy, as if to punish Monica for her distaste of being pregnant again, Monica’s appendix swelled and almost burst. Doctors said she needed an emergency appendectomy, which would mean a simultaneous cesarean section. If Monica’s appendix burst before the cesarean, Monica and the baby would die of toxemia. And if something went wrong with either surgery, they still might die. The odds weren’t great, but there didn’t seem any better choice. Luckily, the plan worked; the cesarean was performed first, the appendectomy immediately after. A healthy baby, Racquel Dunn, was born August 3, 1989.
Paul Dunn was a loving, giving father. He worshipped April and, later, Diane and Racquel. But many police officers and other people who knew Paul didn’t see his parental affection. They didn’t see the softer side.
A handful of Farmington residents appreciated Paul’s courtesy and gentleness when he came to their homes at their time of need—when a family member had a heart attack or other emergency. Some people who received traffic tickets from the good-looking
