Albuquerque police link drug arrest, beating and homicide in one case

A drug arrest near Central and Yale, a brutal beating and a fatal shooting on Albuquerque’s east side were eventually stitched into one homicide case, but only after investigators traced the same people, the same belongings and the same timeline across three separate scenes. What began as a problem inside one home in August 2024 ended with murder charges, evidence tampering allegations and a case that showed how hard it can be to connect violence spread across Bernalillo County neighborhoods.

The sequence started Aug. 20, 2024, when Adam Morres was arrested in an alley near Central and Yale. According to KRQE’s account, Morres asked a friend to retrieve his backpack, which the friend said contained a large half-kilo of cocaine. That set off tension at the house where Morres lived, where residents were upset about the drugs. The friend told the station he was confronted, pistol-whipped, cut with a knife and forced into a car. He was driven out to the mesa and left badly injured in the desert.

A person later called 911 after spotting someone lying near Double Eagle and Atrisco Vista. Investigators later concluded that the beaten man had been dumped there after the assault. Two days after the arrest, police found Morres shot in a car near Lomas and Carlisle. Albuquerque police said officers responded at about 6:28 a.m. on Aug. 22, 2024, to 516 Hermosa Dr. NE, where they found Morres in the driver’s seat of a silver Toyota. He died two days later, and homicide detectives took over the case on Aug. 24.

Police later publicly tied the shooting to drug trafficking and to people Morres knew, including Katherine Silas, 23, and Samanta Villalba, 27. The Albuquerque Police Department charged both women with an open count of murder and tampering with evidence, and said they were arrested in Los Angeles by federal law enforcement authorities. APD said Silas and Villalba had been indicted in Arizona in January 2024 on drug-trafficking charges.

Detectives also believed Morres called Villalba on Aug. 20, 2024, when he was arrested and asked her to send someone to pick up his belongings, including his phone. Police said that person took the items and that the phone later appeared to remain in Villalba’s possession until the killing. KRQE later added two more names to the beating case, Alanna Huntsman and Benito Martinez, and said a status conference was scheduled. The case now stands as a reminder that in Albuquerque, a homicide may begin with a traffic stop, a drug stash and a home dispute long before it is recognized as murder.