Killing of Victoria Martens

On August 24, 2016, police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, responding to a 911 call reporting a domestic dispute, found the dismembered remains of 10-year-old Victoria Martens partially wrapped in a burning blanket inside her mother's second-story apartment. Martens, born August 23, 2006, had died the previous evening, on her 10th birthday, between about 7:45 and 8:30 p.m.; an autopsy found she had been sexually assaulted, strangled, stabbed, and dismembered, and her body was then set on fire. Her mother, 35-year-old Michelle Martens; Michelle Martens's boyfriend, 31-year-old Fabian Gonzales; and Gonzales's cousin, 31-year-old Jessica Kelley, were arrested at the scene.

Victoria Martens attended Petroglyph Elementary School in Albuquerque. New Mexico's Children, Youth and Families Department had received five phone calls concerning the Martens household beginning in 2015, most of them placed by Michelle Martens herself. Michelle Martens later told investigators she solicited men online, including through the dating service Plenty of Fish, to engage in sexual acts with her children; she said she had met Gonzales through that service about a month before the killing. Jessica Kelley had been released from prison only four days earlier. Witnesses reported seeing Kelley carry Victoria into the apartment around 10 p.m. on August 23, and neighbors later reported hearing screaming; around 4:30 a.m., Michelle Martens and Gonzales left the building and told neighbors that Kelley had attacked them with an iron.

Martens, Gonzales, and Kelley were each charged with first-degree murder, child abuse resulting in death, kidnapping, tampering with evidence, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and were held on $1 million cash-only bonds; all three initially pleaded not guilty, and their cases were later split into separate trials. On June 29, 2018, Michelle Martens pleaded guilty to one count of child abuse resulting in death. Bernalillo County District Attorney Raúl Torrez said at the same news conference that most publicized details of the case were "simply not true," and the Albuquerque Police Department announced it was seeking an unidentified fourth male suspect based on DNA evidence recovered from the scene. Torrez said cell-phone data showed Martens and Gonzales were not present when the murder and rape occurred, and nine charges against Gonzales, including second-degree murder and criminal sexual penetration, were subsequently dropped.

Gonzales was the only one of the three to stand trial; in 2022 he was found guilty of reckless child abuse, tampering with evidence, and conspiracy to tamper with evidence, and was sentenced to 37.5 years in prison. Kelley pleaded guilty under a 2019 agreement to testify against Gonzales and, in April 2022, was sentenced to 44 years. Michelle Martens, who prosecutors came to believe had falsely confessed to actively taking part in the killing, was sentenced to 12 years and was released from prison on October 14, 2025, according to local television reports. The fourth suspect sought through DNA evidence has not been publicly identified.

A Civilian Police Oversight Agency investigation later found that an Albuquerque Police Department spokesperson gave the Albuquerque Journal false statements in January 2017 about whether officers had investigated earlier referrals concerning Victoria from the Children, Youth and Families Department; the police chief reduced the oversight agency's recommended two-week suspension of that spokesperson to one day. In August 2017, Victoria's maternal grandparents filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the City of Albuquerque and several named officers, alleging that a failure to investigate an earlier report involving Victoria amounted to negligence; the suit was dismissed in February 2021.