Jurors will get case six years after Victoria Martens killing

Olivier Uyttebrouck, Albuquerque Journal, N.M.

July 11, 2022 at 12:01 AM·12 min read

Jul. 11—Horrific details began to emerge the day police found the mutilated remains of 10-year-old Victoria Martens in her mother's Albuquerque apartment in August 2016.

Police told a stunned public that Victoria's mother and two others drugged and raped the girl before strangling and dismembering her. Arrests and criminal charges for three co-defendants followed quickly.

"This homicide is the most gruesome act of evil I have ever seen in my career," then-Police Chief Gorden Eden said of the crime.

But nearly two years later, prosecutors revealed that much of the original narrative of Victoria's death, and the basis of those criminal charges, was "simply not true."

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday for the first and only trial to emerge from the case. The 2nd Judicial District Court trial for Fabian Gonzales, 37, on charges including child abuse, recklessly caused, resulting in the death of a child under 12.

The cases against Gonzales and two co-defendants have taken a series of abrupt turns in the six years since Victoria was killed.

In the days after the killing, police said Victoria had been injected with methamphetamine "so they could do whatever they want with her," before she was raped and strangled.

Victoria's mother, Michelle Martens, "stood by and watched" while Gonzales and his cousin, Jessica Kelley, killed and dismembered Victoria, a detective wrote in a criminal complaint.

Prosecutors quickly arrested Martens, Gonzales and Kelley and charged each with first-degree murder, intentional abuse of a child, criminal sexual penetration and other charges. Trial dates for all three were set in 2017.

Then nearly two years after Victoria's death, the official narrative changed radically.

Second Judicial District Attorney Raúl Torrez announced at a June 2018 news conference that many of the allegations had been based on false admissions by Martens.

Prosecutors dismissed the murder, criminal sexual penetration and other charges against Gonzales. He was charged instead with child abuse, recklessly caused, resulting in death, eight counts of tampering with evidence and one count of conspiracy to tamper with evidence.

Kelley, 37, pleaded no contest in 2019 to six felony charges including child abuse, recklessly caused, resulting in the death of a child under 12. Kelley was sentenced in April to 44 years in prison.

Michelle Martens, 40, pleaded guilty in 2018 to child abuse, recklessly caused, resulting in death of a child under 12. She faces 12 to 15 years in prison. No sentencing hearing has been scheduled.

Both women are required by their plea deals to testify in Gonzales' trial.

Prosecutors said Friday they are prepared for trial and expect to get a conviction in Gonzales' case.

"The case against Fabian Gonzales is very complex, but our commitment in seeking justice for Victoria has never wavered," the 2nd Judicial District Attorney's Office said in a written statement.

"Through our office's dedication to this case, we secured convictions against Jessica Kelley and Michelle Martens."

Prosecutors also issued a "statement of facts" in September 2018 containing new allegations that in many ways were more bizarre than the original allegations.

The 18-page narrative was filed in 2nd Judicial District Court.

Neither Martens nor Gonzales had been in the apartment at the time of Victoria's killing, the statement said. Instead, Kelley and an unidentified man were in the apartment and were responsible for the killing.

Prosecutors also acknowledged that toxicology testing found no evidence of drugs in Victoria's body, contradicting earlier reports that she had been injected with meth.

Prosecutors alleged that Victoria was killed because Gonzales had threatened rival gang members after a dispute at a barbecue two days before Victoria's killing.

As a result of that dispute, a "well-dressed" Hispanic man came into the apartment where Kelley was babysitting Victoria, asked for Gonzales by his street name, "Fabo," then entered Victoria's bedroom and killed her.

Prosecutors in June 2018 charged "John Doe" with first-degree murder, criminal sexual penetration and other charges in Victoria's death. He has never been identified.

Gonzales and Martens met on a dating app in July 2016 and he moved in with her the following month, according to the statement of facts. Soon, he began bringing drug users to the apartment and, without Martens' permission, let Kelley move in following her release from prison.

Tensions heated up after Gonzales attended an Aug. 21, 2016, barbecue celebrating Kelley's release. There, two women, one of whom was pregnant, beat up Gonzales and gave him a black eye.

An infuriated Gonzales threatened to retaliate against the two women and sought to buy a firearm on a classified ads website.

On the morning of Victoria's murder, Martens and Gonzales left Victoria alone with Kelley, even though they had been warned by a friend that Kelley was "acting strangely."

Just hours before Victoria's death, Kelley received a phone call from her sister in prison and admitted she was "tweaking," a slang term for using methamphetamine, and hallucinating.

Kelley also feared that someone was going to "roll up" on the apartment while Gonzales and Martens were gone, according to the statement of facts.

Kelley "saw a car with two individuals repeatedly drive past the apartment," the statement said.

Then a man entered the apartment and said he was looking for Gonzales, prosecutors alleged.

"The man went into Victoria's room and killed her," prosecutors wrote in the statement. The man "instructed Kelley that she and Gonzales needed to clean up 'the mess' or she and her kids would be next."

After Gonzales and Martens returned to the apartment, they "appeared to be high, paranoid and 'tweaked out'," prosecutors wrote. The two sat in Martens' car in the parking lot "singing loudly to music," it said.

"At that time, Kelley carried Victoria's lifeless body down the steps outside of Martens' apartment," the statement said. "Victoria was wrapped in a blanket."

Kelley returned upstairs to the apartment with Victoria's body, and Gonzales and Martens followed a short time later. In a brief conversation, Kelley told Gonzales that Victoria was dead and the two decided to clean up the scene and bury Victoria's body.

Prosecutors allege that Kelley and Gonzales worked together to dismember the body, clean the apartment, and set the body on fire in a bathtub.

When police officers arrived at the apartment, Kelley jumped off the second-story balcony, fracturing her ankle.

More recent developments in the case suggest that prosecutors may have abandoned their theory that "John Doe" killed Victoria.

Stephen Aarons, Gonzales' attorney, asked a judge last month to order prosecutors to provide an updated theory about how Victoria died. Aarons argued that the prosecution's case against Gonzales has evolved so much that the 2018 statement of facts doesn't allow Gonzales to mount a defense.

"The prosecutors may have abandoned allegations that Mr. Doe retaliated after Mr. Gonzales made gang threats," Aarons wrote in a motion asking for the updated statement of facts.

District Judge Cindy Leos rejected the request, writing in a June 28 order that prosecutors aren't required "to inform Defense how they intend to present their case or disclose their theory of the case."

Horrific details began to emerge the day police found the mutilated remains of 10-year-old Victoria Martens in her mother's Albuquerque apartment in August 2016.