Prosecutors detail facts in Victoria’s case
Fabian Gonzales threatened woman after fight, court filings say
After a pregnant woman gave him a black eye, Fabian Gonzales “cried” to his gang-connected brothers and then sent text messages to the woman alluding to a drive-by shooting, referring to her children and threatening her boyfriend, prosecutors say.
“Defendant made himself a target and then deliberately moved (Victoria Martens), unprotected, into the crosshairs,” prosecutors Greer Rose and James Grayson wrote.
In state District Court filings Thursday, prosecutors highlight the facts that they believe support a child abuse resulting in death charge against him in the Martens homicide case.
Gonzales is expected in court today, and in documents filed Thursday, the state dropped a charge of conspiracy to commit child abuse count and narrowed the focus of the charge of child abuse resulting in death by saying that the crime was committed recklessly. Gonzales’ attorney has asked the court to dismiss that count.
In a response to his request, prosecutors explain what happened in the days after Gonza-
les was beaten up at a barbecue on Aug. 21, 2016, and before Victoria was strangled by an unidentified man in her family’s northwest Albuquerque apartment two days later.
It was “disrespect and threats from Gonzales set into motion the events that led to the homicide of Victoria Martens,” prosecutors say.
Immediately after the fight, prosecutors say in the filings, Gonzales called his brothers “and cried about being (beaten) up.”
The pregnant woman has said that Gonzales and his brothers were affiliated with Thugs Causing Kaos.
In a 2015 Summit on Community Violence, presenters said TCK was likely the most violent street gang in Albuquerque. Andrew Romero, who shot and killed a Rio Rancho police officer, had the gang’s insignia tattooed on his neck.
The state has filed notice that it intends to bring up Gonzales’ gang affiliation at his trial. But Gonzales’ attorney Stephen Aarons says introducing “gang hyperbole” could lead jurors to convict his client “based on the propensity of purported gangsters to kill anyone and everyone for whatever reason.”
Aarons could not be reached for comment Thursday.
In the hours after the altercation, Gonzales sent messages to the pregnant woman saying that he “hoped she died,” and alluding to a drive-by shooting, and threatening the woman’s gang-member boyfriend, prosecutors said. That night and the next day, Gonzales searched for guns online and contacted more TCK members.
Gonzales “knew the code of the street and the consequences of his threats,” prosecutors wrote. In an earlier filing, prosecutors said Gonzales was also using and selling methamphetamine around that time and had brought drug users to the Martens’ home. Shortly before Victoria’s death, Gonzales asked the girl’s mother to leave the apartment with him, and said that they should leave Victoria behind with Jessica Kelley, who had been using meth.
Kelley says that while she was watching the girl, a stranger walked into the apartment, killed Victoria and told her that the homicide was Gonzales’ fault. The man told Kelley that she and Gonzales needed to “clean up the mess,” and both are accused of cleaning up the crime scene and mutilating the child’s body. Prosecutors say that Gonzales did so because he recognized his role in her death.