Police pin four in deadly armed robbery

PORTALES — Police on Tuesday announced they had obtained arrest warrants on four people in connection with a Portales homicide investigation.

Three were in custody that afternoon and the only one still at large was arrested that evening.

Court documents describe the April 7 shooting death of Adam “Florida” Holts as an armed robbery turned fatal, with two men charged with first-degree murder and two others charged with conspiracy to commit armed robbery.

Manuel Silva Jr., 23, and Korbin Baldridge, 19, “will be served with their warrants at their respective detention facilities,” according to a news release from the Portales Police Department. The warrants charge each man with murder, armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, tampering with evidence and felon in possession of a firearm.

Fabian Duran, 32, was arrested within hours of public broadcast of his outstanding warrant for conspiracy to commit armed robbery. He was booked into the Curry County Adult Detention Center at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday night.

Holts, 35, was found dead inside a camper trailer on the 400 block of North Avenue B shortly after midnight April 7 in Portales. A witness told police that she and several others were inside the trailer with Holts when two men entered clad mostly in black and wearing bandannas. One wielded a sawed-off shotgun and the other a handgun; witnesses reported hearing one or more gunshots, and Holts was later “discovered inside the trailer with an apparent gunshot wound to the chest area,” according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Morgan Carmichael, 21, told police she was outside the trailer in her Volkswagen Jetta at the time of the shooting. She said her brother Baldridge and boyfriend Silva went inside with the intention of retrieving a handgun allegedly stolen from Duran, which had been conveyed to Holts in order to settle a “drug debt,” records show.

“She stated Fabian Duran planned on going to the camper trailer with Manuel Silva and Korbin Baldridge. Fabian Duran was supposed to kick the door in and go retrieve his gun while Korbin would take drugs found in the camper trailer,” Police Det. Amador Lujan wrote of the interview with Carmichael. “Morgan stated she was aware prior to going to the camper trailer of the events planned in order to retrieve the handgun and the drugs but did not expect anyone to get shot.”

Carmichael said that while waiting outside during the alleged robbery attempt, she “saw Fabian Duran drive around the block in his white in color suburban but never stopped.” A 17-year old girl, seated in the back of Carmichael’s Volkswagen during the incident, told police Duran was present at Carmichael and Silva’s residence on Portales’ West 17th Lane earlier that night along with Baldridge. Carmichael allegedly drove Silva, Baldridge and the juvenile from the scene of the incident.

A search warrant executed Thursday at that residence on West 17th Lane found ammunition “consistent with the same brand and caliber as the spent casings at the scene where Adam Holts was shot” as well as the “clothing and red bandanna described to be worn by the suspects,” records show.

Duran told investigators he was at that residence on the night in question and “had overheard Manuel and another subject say, ‘Well, let’s just take him out.’”

Investigators confronted Duran with “inconsistencies” and omissions in his recounting of the night. He told police he drove by Holts’ trailer around the time of the shooting, “noticed a parked vehicle” outside and kept going, but “failed to mention he had contacted another law enforcement agency to report subjects following and chasing him through town on the night of the homicide.”

On April 12, police said Carmichael and Silva were “persons of interest” in their investigation, and on the afternoon of April 14 they were both detained. Silva was arrested on a fugitive warrant and charged with aggravated fleeing a law enforcement officer after leading Clovis police on a motor vehicle and foot pursuit Sunday afternoon; Carmichael was riding passenger at the time, and spoke with police but was not charged until Tuesday.

Silva spoke with investigators and told them he, Carmichael, Baldridge and Duran “discussed how they were going to retrieve a firearm from Adam Holts that was previously owned by Fabian Duran,” and that the latter “was supposed to meet them at the camper where Adam Holts was hanging out.”

Silva “denies he shot (Holts) at any time but named Korbin Baldridge as the shooter,” according to an arrest warrant affidavit. He told police that Baldridge entered the trailer first, and once both men were inside “he observed (Baldridge) wrestling with (Holts) over a firearm and he heard it go off.”

The arrest warrant generated on Carmichael charges her with conspiracy to commit armed robbery, harboring a felon, accessory to armed robbery and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

“These are the allegations against her, but she’s not formally charged unless and until she is formally indicted,” her attorney Craig Acorn told The News. “All I can say at this point is we are just beginning our own investigation into it, we are just beginning to talk to our clients, she is presumed innocent at this point.”

Acorn, with Albuquerque’s public defender office, said Carmichael is next scheduled to appear Tuesday morning before Judge Donna Mowrer on a state motion for pre-trial detention. Online court records did not reflect an attorney being appointed as of Friday night to represent Silva, Baldridge or Duran.

Records show the state has also filed pretrial preventive detention motions on all three men; Silva has a hearing on the matter Monday afternoon before Judge Drew Tatum, while Duran and Baldridge appear Tuesday. All four entered no plea in court appearances Wednesday.

The case goes April 26 before a grand jury in Roosevelt County, according to the police news release.