Suspect arrested in woman’s fatal beating
Detectives have arrested a man they said beat a woman to death in an apartment on Carlisle near Constitution NE on Sunday.
Julian Valenzuela, 42, is charged with murder. Both he and the 38-yearold woman were staying at an apartment rented by an acquaintance. All three had attended a rehab program at Steelbridge, which provides services for homeless people.
An Albuquerque Police Department spokesman said detectives have not yet been able to notify the woman’s next of kin so he asked that her name not be publicly released.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, Valenzuela had been staying at a friend’s apartment for about 20 days because he did not have his own place to stay. Then, about a week ago Valenzuela met the woman at a bus stop and invited her to stay with them until she got enough money to go to Carlsbad.
Shortly before midnight on Sunday, officers were called to the apartment for an aggravated battery call. When they arrived Valenzuela, covered in blood, flagged them down from an intersection, telling them “it’s that way. She’s dead,” according to the complaint.
When the officers went in the house they found the woman who appeared to have been severely beaten. Albuquerque Fire Rescue personnel tried to save her but she died.
Both Valenzuela and the man who rented the apartment were taken into custody to be interviewed.
When detectives spoke to Valenzuela he told them he had gotten into a fight with the woman because she had posted on Facebook that he was gay, according to the complaint. Then he didn’t want to say anything else.
The man who rented the apartment told detectives that he spent most of the day in his room by himself — once hearing Valenzuela say something like “I’m gonna kill that (expletive)” and assuming he was joking. He said at some point he heard the front door slam and saw the woman lying on her back in the kitchen, seriously injured.