Murder suspect found with severed hand in pocket allegedly confessed in jail phone call
Editor's note: This story contains graphic depictions of violence and sexual violence that may be disturbing to readers. Discretion is advised.
A Pueblo man accused of murder and found with a severed hand in his pocket at the time of his arrest allegedly admitted to killing the victim in a recorded phone call with his mother, according to a recording played in a Sept. 3 hearing.
Solomon Martinez, 26, was arrested Jan. 10 after police were tipped off about a body in Fountain Creek, which was later identified as Renee Portillos. At the time of his arrest, Martinez had a human hand inside of a plastic bag inside of his jacket pocket.
During the preliminary hearing, which ultimately resulted in Martinez being bound for a jury trial, an investigator for the 10th Judicial District Attorney's Office played a recording of two phone calls between Martinez and his mother, which were made from the Pueblo County jail.
In the phone calls, Martinez admitted to killing Portillos, although he continued to claim that an acquaintance of his dismembered her body.
During the first phone call, Martinez initially claimed that he "blacked out" during the murder and had no memory of what happened. However, in the second phone call, he stated to his mother that the victim wanted him to kill her and that they had spent an extended length of time talking prior to the murder.
During the hearing, detectives from the Pueblo Police Department testified that videos and photos were found on Martinez's phone showing a man, whom they said appeared to be Martinez, performing sex acts on the deceased victim's dismembered corpse. The materials found on Martinez's phone also showed the man "manipulating" the victim's dismembered head, which lead Detective Jose Medina testified was never found by police.
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Detectives downloaded the contents of Martinez's phone and found social media accounts allegedly linked to Martinez. On a Reddit account, Martinez allegedly engaged in more than 20 discussions over the course of two years on a subreddit dedicated to necrophilia.
During the phone call with his mother, he admitted to having those desires for years but said he'd hidden them from family. During the phone call, he blamed his family for "making him into the monster" he is, and stated that he didn't deserve to be in prison because he'd "already learned his lesson" and that "there was no point incarcerating him for life."
Police were originally alerted to the case when an eyewitness claimed he saw Martinez drag a body from his car into Fountain Creek. The witness later told police that Martinez had forced him to remove Portillos' right hand and left arm, but claimed that Martinez had forced him to do so at gunpoint. The eyewitness also maintained that the head was missing before he ever saw the body.
During the first day of the hearing in July, investigators played a video showing Martinez's arrest, during which police found a human hand wrapped in a white plastic bag inside of his jacket pocket.
Jonah Wexler, an attorney representing Martinez in the case, stated that he believed that the prosecution had not proved the charges of murder in the first degree, specifically stating that they had not proved the element of deliberation, or that he had planned to kill Portillos.
On the charge of tampering with human remains, Wexler argued that it may have been an alternate suspect, an acquaintance of Martinez's, who dismembered the corpse, and that Martinez never admitted to dismembering Portillos. There was also no evidence, he argued, to support that Martinez had dismembered the body with the "intent to impair its or their appearance or availability in the official proceedings."
Deputy District Attorney Stacey Turner argued that deliberation doesn't need to be lengthy, but in this case, Martinez, by his own admission, spent several hours with Portillos before the murder, giving him plenty of time to deliberate. Martinez also discussed his necrophilic "urges" frequently online and admitted to his mother that he was a "necrophiliac."
Turner argued that even if a reasonable person entertained the theory that the eyewitness dismembered the body, it would not change Martinez's culpability, as the eyewitness claimed to remove a hand and arm while under duress.
Judge Allison P. Ernst found probable cause to send the case to trial. Ernst commented that Martinez was found with a hand in his pocket, indicating that at minimum he had removed and hidden part of the body, and that it would be "harder to identify someone without fingerprints." The head was also never found, Ernst said.
Martinez formally entered a plea of not guilty on all charges. A jury trial is set for January.
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This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Pueblo murder and beheading suspect Solomon Martinez pleads not guilty