Woman arrested in boyfriend’s stabbing
Police say story behind man’s death inconsistent
When 40-year-old Michelle Morgan knocked on a neighbor’s door early Sunday morning, bloodied and asking for help calling police, she said she had stabbed her boyfriend after he stabbed her.
But investigators say there were many inconsistencies in her story and the physical evidence at the scene did not support her version of events.
Morgan was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.
Morgan does not have a criminal history in New Mexico according to court records. Prosecutors have asked for her to be held in the county jail pending trial.
The incident was one of three homicide investigations — with four victims — over the weekend.
Around 4 a.m., officers were called to a stabbing at the Desert Willow Apartments on Jefferson north of Alameda NE. Morgan’s boyfriend, Martin Miera, had been stabbed multiple times in the head, face and neck and died on the bathroom floor. Police said his throat had been cut just below his jaw line and his Achilles tendon on both ankles had been severed. A silver knife, covered with blood, was laying lying nearby.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, one of the apartment complex’s residents told police Morgan knocked on her door, asked her to call the police and said “he’s hurt really bad.” The neighbor called 911 and the dispatcher gave instructions to Morgan on how to perform CPR.
The neighbor said that she has heard arguments between Morgan and Miera in the past and Morgan once told her there was physical and emotional abuse in the relationship.
Morgan was taken to the hospital, treated for lacerations to her right leg and knuckles and bruising to her hand and then released.
When detectives interviewed Morgan she told them that she and Miera went to Sandia Casino and then to La Luz trail, where they got into an argument. Morgan told detectives she left Miera at the trail and took his car to a park near her apartment. He eventually came back to the apartment and she let him in.
“Michelle said Martin was upset and retrieved a knife from the kitchen,” the detective wrote in the complaint. “At this point Michelle began to explain the events surrounding the death of Martin Miera. There were numerous inconsistencies in Michelle’s version of what occurred during the struggle between her and Martin and how he ultimately sustained his numerous observed injuries.”
The detective said when confronted with the inconsistencies, Morgan changed her account and said she was the one who got the knife from the kitchen. She said she severed Miera’s Achilles ten
dons to immobilize him but also said he weighed under 140 pounds and was weakened by an abdominal surgery that he underwent three days before the attack, according to the complaint.
“At this point she admitted to stabbing Martin four times in the upper chest region and ‘cut’ his face around four times,” the detective wrote in the complaint. “Michelle said she was overcome with ‘rage and adrenaline’ and could not recall the amount of times she stabbed and slashed Martin.”