Mother admits watching boyfriend, cousin torture and kill daughter
ALBUQUERQUE, NM (KRQE) – Albuquerque police have released transcripts of interviews with the mother of a 10-year-old girl who was brutally murdered.
Michelle Martens told police two stories that both made her out to be innocent before police finally got her to crack.**WARNING: The details are disturbing.**
Martens’ interview with investigators goes on for more than 100 pages before she finally admits she sat back and watched as her boyfriend and his cousin tortured and killed 10-year-old Victoria Martens.
At first she told police she and her boyfriend, Fabian Gonzales, were attacked in the middle of the night by Gonzales’ cousin, Jessica Kelley. She said she had no idea what had happened to Victoria. Detectives didn’t buy it and told Martens that her boyfriend was telling police everything in another room, but he wasn’t.
“Jessica comes into our bedroom and asks me if I believe in God,” she told police. “She kept hitting me, hitting me, hitting me, punching.”
She claimed she escaped and that when she was running to get help, Kelley shouted, “Your daughter’s dead.”
Then her story changed again. She claimed she and Gonzales left Victoria at home with Kelley, a convicted rapist, who’d been staying with them for a week. She stated that Victoria had taken meth left on the table and died, so Gonzales and Kelley decided to try and dispose of the body. She also said that the two threatened to kill her.
“That if I say anything, I’m going to be the next one,” Martens said.
After hours of being questioned, Martens broke. She told detectives she watched Gonzales and Kelley sexually assault Victoria at least three times in the days before the murder. She also said she suspected Gonzales had been sexually assaulting her daughter for a month while she was at work.
One detective asks, “This time she died and you weren’t ready for the type of animals these people were?”
Martens replied “Yes, but I should have stopped it.”
She then told police she enjoyed watching men have sex with Victoria. She admitted to letting two other men have sex with her daughter over the past six months. She named both the men.
Albuquerque police will not say if those two men have been questioned.
Transcripts show APD also talked to Gonzales, an interview lasting for about 8 hours.
At first, his story was similar to Martens’ initial story, claiming he was a victim.
At one point, he asks if Martens can come to the same room so they can tell the story together.
Hours later, he claimed he did see the gruesome scene as his cousin tried to get rid of the body and said he was forced to clean up afterwards. He blamed Kelley for killing and sexually assault the 10-year-old.
Kelley asked for a lawyer.
She did have questions for police though, asking them about what evidence they had linking her to the murder and asking if it was proven.