Courtesy Santa Fe Police Department
Officers arrested Manuel Joseph Martinez (left) Sept. 30 on two charges of murder, along with other offenses. The victims, Ebony Faith Martinez (center) and Abraham Dominic Romo (right), both appeared to have sustained at least one gunshot wound.
A man and woman are dead, and a suspect is in custody after a shooting Monday night in a residential neighborhood near the intersection of Siringo Road and Camino Consuelo.
Manuel Joseph Martinez, 23, is behind bars in connection with the shooting deaths of 19-year-old Abraham Dominic Romo and 23-year-old Ebony Faith Martinez of Santa Fe.
At approximately 11 p.m. Monday, Santa Fe Police Department officers responded to a noise complaint coming from under the bridge near Siringo Road and Camino Consuelo, according to a community alert social media post from SFPD.
According to a Tuesday night media release from SFPD, upon arrival officers saw a black Cadillac SUV that appeared to have left the roadway and veered into the arroyo. Law enforcement “immediately made contact” with a male suspect “covered in blood” who held a firearm and had exited the vehicle. The suspect dropped the weapon and first attempted to flee on foot, but officers arrested him shortly after.
That’s when law enforcement officials found the deceased male and female—each with at least one gunshot wound—in the vehicle.
The Monday morning slayings mark another gun violence incident in recent months for Santa Fe. Law enforcement officials apprehended Zachary Ryan Babitz—a man accused of shooting and killing an 83-year-old man during a robbery in the parking lot of Best Buy on Zafarano Drive in early August. Prior to that, a man shot an employee in the head at the Sonic Drive-In restaurant on Cerrillos Road in late July.
District 4 City Councilor Jamie Cassutt, whose district has been the arena for multiple homicides in recent months, tells SFR she’s been “working closely” with District 4 City Councilor Amanda Chavez to organize a community meeting focused on public safety later this month. SFPD officials and members of the city Constituent Services Department will attend, Cassutt adds.
“Residents are not feeling as safe as they used to in their homes. I do think it’s important to start having these really tangible conversations focused on how we can help each other with a lot of these issues,” she says, noting topics such as neighborhood watch groups and the nuisance complaint process in the city. “I’m finalizing the details of time and place for that community meeting.”
At the state and federal level, she adds, more needs to be done, including potential reformation of “the broader criminal justice system” and the implementation of “common-sense gun laws.”
“We have issues with gun violence and how easy it is to access guns, but often when we have these conversations, they go to these black and white extremes of taking everybody’s guns away or having no gun laws at all,” Cassutt says. “That’s not a real dichotomy we have to choose from. We need to advocate for better gun laws that ensure those who shouldn’t have guns don’t have them.”
She notes she will have conversations with state leaders from the Santa Fe delegation ahead of the New Mexico Legislature’s 2025 regular session.
Martinez has a criminal history, including open charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and trafficking a controlled substance. He was arrested Sept. 22 on those charges, but released by the court on personal recognizance with conditions of release.
According to the criminal complaint on those charges, Martinez threatened a Goodwill store worker with a replica handgun. Police reported finding six baggies of cocaine which “appeared to be packaged for the intention of selling” in Martinez’s possession at the time of his arrest.
Martinez has been arrested for violence before. Last December, he was arrested for domestic abuse and in March of this year, he was charged with strangling a woman.
Both cases were dismissed without prejudice, according to court records.
Martinez now faces two murder charges in connection with Monday’s double-homicide; one count of tampering with evidence; and two counts of resisting and obstructing an officer. Officers booked him into the Santa Fe County Adult Detention Center on Tuesday around noon, SFPD Deputy Chief Ben Valdez tells SFR.
Anyone with information about the incident or surveillance camera footage of the incident is asked to call the Santa Fe Police Department at (505) 428-3710 or Detective Jairo DePaz at (505) 955-5297.
The community can also submit any related videos or photos at https://santafepd.evidence.com/axon/community-request/public/2024-011492
