Slain man in 2nd homicide of year not yet identified

Police are not yet identifying the victim in a Saturday homicide because they can not find any family members or next of kin to notify of his death.

“We’re still trying to track down his family,” Lt. Sean Strahon of the Santa Fe Police Department said Sunday. “We know he was living in that van for many years but we don’t know his background.”

On Saturday, police identified the suspect as Matthew Rodriguez, who lives in a duplex at the corner of Fifth and Hopewell streets, not far from St. Michael’s Drive. He was booked into Santa Fe County jail Saturday night and is being held without bond.

The 64-year-old victim lived in a tan Chevy van that was parked in the driveway of a home next door to Rodriguez’s duplex.

Strahon said based on police interviews with people who live in the vicinity of the crime, Rodriguez “appears to have had some mental issues in the past … people said he was behaving erratically.”

He said police still have not identified a motive for the killing, but said Rodriguez confessed that he stabbed the victim with a knife.

The wounded man was transported to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center on Saturday afternoon, where he died.

The man’s death is the second homicide case of the year in the city of Santa Fe, following the death earlier this month of a 3-month-old infant. Police believe the boy’s baby sitter rolled over him in her sleep after using heroin. Rachel Smith, 25, faces a second-degree felony charge of child abandonment resulting in death.

Rodriguez has a history of arrests for minor crimes, with his most recent arrest being earlier this month, on charges of trespassing and shoplifting. In 2013, he pleaded no contest to an assault charge.

Stahon said the victim did not have a criminal record of note — “Just minor stuff, mostly traffic cases years ago.”