Woman is arrested in stabbing death of girlfriend
Albuquerque Police Department detectives made an arrest in one of two homicides they investigated Sunday.
Mary Jane Luna-Ruybal, 31, was charged with murder in the stabbing of her girlfriend at a motel on Central near Tramway.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, officers were called to a stabbing at the Desert Sands Inn and Suites around 8 a.m. Sunday. When they arrived, they found Luna-Ruybal, who showed them Olivia Herrera, 29, lying face down dead in a room.
The two had been staying at the motel for about a week, police said.
A spokeswoman for the Law Offices of the Public Defender said the allegations against
Luna-Ruybal are being evaluated to determine which attorney will take her case. Prosecutors asked that she be held until trial.
According to the complaint, Luna-Ruybal told detectives she and Herrera had some friends over who smoked meth while the couple drank. She said that after their friends left, she and Herrera began to argue, so she went for a walk in order to separate herself. Luna-Ruybal said when she returned about 30 minutes later, Herrera had been stabbed.
However, detectives found security camera footage from the motel, and according to the complaint, when they told Luna-Ruybal they hadn’t seen her leave the property, she told them a different story.
In this version, LunaRuybal told detectives that after their friends left, she took an Advil for a headache and was lying down when she saw Herrera using a dating app. She said she confronted her girlfriend and the two argued, so she went outside to smoke a cigarette. When she tried to go back inside, the door was locked, so she removed the screen from the window so she could get in.
Luna-Ruybal said the argument became physical, and once she was inside the room, Herrera threatened to stab her with her knife, described as a “large black survival knife.” Herrera then went to the bathroom, leaving the knife behind, so Luna-Ruybal said she grabbed it before Herrera came back out.
Luna-Ruybal told detectives Herrera was “taunting” and telling her she would not stab her.
“Mary Jane then stated she went to stab the door when Olivia stepped in front of her and she ‘accidentally’ stabbed Olivia,” the detective wrote in the complaint. “Mary Jane stated Olivia grabbed on to the desk and said ‘wow.’ Olivia then collapsed and that is when Mary Jane attempted to help Olivia by covering her wound.”
The knife could not be found at the motel.
About eight hours after APD was called to investigate Herrera’s death, a spokeswoman announced they were investigating another homicide after a man was found dead in an alleyway. No one had been arrested in that case.