Records: Slain man was robbed violently
Michael Willms, found slain at an apartment complex in midtown Santa Fe on Thursday, was no stranger to violent encounters.
Police found the body of 58-yearold Willms inside his apartment at the Avaria of Santa Fe complex on Lorca Drive, according to Santa Fe police Capt. Robert Vasquez. In a news release issued Friday, police said he died from multiple injuries. Officers are still working to determine when he died and who may have seen him last, Vasquez said.
Court records document at least
two instances in which Willms, a longtime event planner who moved to Santa Fe around 2012, said he was beaten by younger men he had invited to live with him.
In the most recent case, Willms told police late last year he had been badly beaten by an 18-year-old homeless man with whom he’d had a sexual relationship, according to an affidavit for an arrest warrant. In early November, Willms said, Mathew Culley and two other men came to his home, pulled a gun on him, severely beat him and robbed him, according to the affidavit.
Culley was arrested and charged. Lawyers held a plea conference in the case last week, and Tuesday afternoon, Culley was released from the Santa Fe County jail, where he had been held since Nov. 29.
Willms seemed to have a “very active social life,” Vasquez said, confirming that Willms often socialized with members of the homeless community.
Asked if police were looking into the circumstances of Willms’ beating last year to determine if the incident was tied to his death, Vasquez said, “We’re looking at everybody. Everybody he socialized with, people he was affiliated with.
“We’re looking at people in his past where he was the victim of one crime or another, as we would do in any investigation,” Vasquez added. “When we have a victim, we always do a victimology. In this case, it’s very extensive. … He’s an older gentleman and he had a very active social life.”
Police have not made any arrests and have withheld many details of Willms’ death.
“Normally, on most homicides, we disclose a lot of information up front,” Vasquez said. “On this one, this is an investigation that is going to take some time. There are a lot of people that [Willms] was associated with that we need to talk to right now.”
Friends, shocked by Willms’ death, said late last week that since his arrival in Santa Fe, he was an active member of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Faith and did some work in retail.
Clarice Coffey, the owner of Santa Fe tour and wedding companies, described him as intelligent and outgoing, a person who went out of his way to help people and was a fantastic cook.
“He had a wicked sense of humor,” she told The New Mexican.
Newspaper records and Willms’ personal blog show he had worked as high-end wedding and events planner in Southern California, where he was featured in national media and sought out for comments by news outlets after California legalized gay marriage. His blog indicates that he intended to continue his business after he moved to Santa Fe, but the posts stopped in late 2012.
In 2015, Willms filed a restraining order against a man who had been living in his home, according to court documents, which show Willms asked for a fee waiver due to being indigent. He wrote that he had been unemployed for 18 months and had been collecting a Social Security check that just barely covered the cost of rent and utilities.
Willms alleged in his complaint that the other man had hit him in the face and head, had broken his glasses and had threatened to throw him off a balcony. He said the 28-year-old man was probably living “on the streets” or at a Motel 6.
Willms’ request for a restraining order against the man was dismissed.
According to an affidavit for Culley’s arrest in the more recent case, Willms told police that he and the two other men had restrained and pistol-whipped him, threatened his life and then broke a glass tabletop over his head.
They also stole his laptop and his iPhone, he told police. Willms at the time spoke briefly with
The New Mexican about the case, saying the men had broken his nose and the bone under his left eye.
He had been romantically involved with Culley, he said, and Culley had stayed with him for about two weeks before Willms kicked him out.
Court documents list Culley’s address as the local homeless shelter.
At the time of the attack, Culley had been facing charges in a case in which he was accused of stabbing an employee of the downtown Five & Dime General Store. Felony charges were dismissed for lack of prosecution, court records show.
The results of Culley’s plea hearing in the Willms’ case were not immediately available in online court filings, and Culley’s lawyer did not respond to calls for comment Tuesday.
“It’s just typical idiots, attacking a white person,” Willms told The New Mexican after the attack.