Four warrants issued in Portales homicide investigation

PORTALES — Police on Tuesday announced they had obtained arrest warrants on four people in connection to a recent ongoing 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 deadly, with two young men charged with 1st-degree murder and two other people charged with conspiracy to commit armed robbery.

Manuel Silva, 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 with bandanas over their faces. One wielded a 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.”

“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,” PPD 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.

Last week PPD said Carmichael and Silva were “persons of interest” in their investigation, and on Sunday afternoon 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 in any way until Tuesday.

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.

The case goes April 26 before a grand jury in Roosevelt County, according to PPD’s news release.