Jury continues deliberation in case of Pueblo man accused of beheading body, keeping severed hand

PUEBLO, Colo. (KRDO) - A Pueblo County jury is in the midst of deciding whether Soloman Martinez, a Pueblo man who was arrested with a severed hand in his pocket, is guilty of First Degree Murder and other charges related to the killing of a woman who was found decapitated in January of 2024.

The jury spent a little over two hours in deliberation on Wednesday evening, before being sent home at 6 p.m. to return on Thursday and continue working towards a verdict.

The 26-year-old defendant Martinez sat clean-shaven, with a calm demeanor throughout the day in court Wednesday, sometimes shaking his head, or otherwise mostly sitting motionless. The arguments concluded a 10-day trial over his charges of First Degree Murder, Tampering with a Deceased Body, and Abuse of a Corpse.

Martinez had previously pleaded not guilty to the charges that connected him to the murder of 47-year-old Renee Marie Portillos, who had been found decapitated in a riverbed in Pueblo.

Portillos' family, including an aunt and sister, were present in court on Wednesday. Her younger sister told KRDO13 that she was always laughing, was someone who looked over her five younger siblings, and was also a mother of three herself.

She said her older sisters' death was, and still is, a shock, and called the last year extremely difficult. She even went as far as to say anytime she sees a security vehicle or a man who looks similar to Martinez, she has a visceral reaction.

The sister added that being in the same room as Portillos' killer, felt wrong, and frustrating, seeing him sitting motionless, and even eating food at times. She shared this photo below:

Final Arguments lasted for around three hours on Wednesday with the Prosecution presenting their case first.

**Warning: Some of the following details are extremely graphic in both violent and sexual nature***

The Prosecution's Closing Argument:

At its core, the People argued that Martinez deliberately planned out the murder, sexual violation, dismemberment, and disposal of Renee Portillos' body to fulfill a life-long fantasy of necrophilia, particularly through decapitation.

They claim that Martinez changed his story five different times during the course of the investigation, through the final days of the trial, in regards to key details about what happened, and claimed he was actively trying to deceive detectives on purpose.

The Prosecution says Martinez took Portillos to the abandoned Wendy's property at 1695 Sante Fe Drive, where they had sex, and he paid her for her services as a prostitute.

The Prosecution says he then killed her with his firearm, firing two shots in the back of her head, citing two bullet casings from the 17-bullet magazine that were found spent in his vehicle.

Then they allege that Martinez took Portillos' body to an area he knew no one would be able to see, which is behind an abandoned house in the Joplin Hill area for over an hour.

This is where they argue that Martinez was prepared and was ready to carry out a "life-long" desire to decapitate her, with condoms and cleaning supplies in his car. They argue he took multiple photos and videos of her body for his own pleasure after the act, which were shown at times in the prosecution's slideshow.

Some of the photos were highly graphic, sparing some of the worst details by cropping it out of frame. The Prosecution did however include one photo of Portillos' nude decapitated body during their final slideshow argument to the jury, late Wednesday afternoon, to drive their point home for the First Degree Murder charge.

The Prosecution argues that Martinez stayed with Portillos' body for around 2 hours, "not just defiling but demeaning it", by putting fingers in her nose and mouth.

One of the key points that the People emphasized was the 26-year-old's online history, relating to sexual desires. They showed an account belonging to Martinez, HAHKA-01, with comments on posts from the website Reddit, that showed depictions of decapitated women, expressing desires to have sex with those bodies, especially because they cannot have any opinions or complaints.

One comment from Martinez's account talked about wanting to “do this IRL", IRL is internet slang for "in real life."

They also cited that Martinez admitted to his mother in a recorded phone call, that he always wanted to “try it”, without naming exactly what 'it' is, and described how he had sexual urges around necrophilia since he was 8 years old.

As for the rest of Martinez's actions that night, the Prosecution explains that he then transports Portillos' body in his trunk to a riverbed and drags the body there, sometime after 4 a.m.

Prior to that, they explained that Martinez tried burning evidence at the same place where he killed Portillos.

It was later that morning, that Martinez showed up at a car wash near Troy Ave. and Constitution Rd. and used the stall's power washer to wash the blood off his hands. There, Martinez's roommate Joshua Mazzurco explains how he suspected Martinez had killed someone, which was further enhanced by the fact that he asked Mazzurco, "...hey man you want to absolve $1,000 off your debt, I need you to dig a 10-foot hole."

It wasn't until a few days later that Mazzurco and another man, James Lovall, were the ones to report a 9-1-1 call about the body at the riverbed, after previously leaving a tip with the Crime Stoppers line that didn't matriculate into a response by police.

Lovall, a homeless man, claims that Martinez held him at gunpoint later that morning after the alleged murder, to use a machete and cut off Portillos' hand. Lovall took photos and videos of the body, which he showed to police.

Security video at Walmart shows Martinez purchasing the large knife, which he brought back to the riverbed to have Lovall use to carry out the dismemberment.

Martinez would ultimately keep the hand in a plastic bag for multiple days, inside his chest pocket, which was found upon his arrest by deputies.

It was for all these reasons that the People argued Martinez was deliberate, decisive, and purposeful in the murder of Portillos, while defiling her body for sexual gratification, and then worked to conceal the body and hide it in the riverbed, asking the jury to find him guilty on all three counts he was charged with.

The Defenses Closing Argument:

The Defense team's main argument was that Martinez was in fact guilty of tampering with a dead body, and for the abuse of a corpse. However, they contended that Martinez did not commit premeditated 1st Degree Murder.

They explained that Martinez picked up Ms. Portillos for the purpose of prostitution, ultimately driving around to look for her son who was missing, before she turned frantic and distressed while high on fentanyl, and then shot herself with Martinez's holstered handgun in the passenger seat.

The Prosecution would later argue that the notion of Portillos committing suicide was only brought up on Tuesday by Martinez while on the stand, where he first stated she had killed herself, but upon cross-examination, stated she killed herself by accident.

“Was she crazy? Yeah, a bit." Martinez said in a clip played by the defense from the defendant's interview with detectives after his arrest. Many portions of that same interview were played throughout the final arguments.

Martinez says Portillos began to claim she could hear her son calling out to her, although they could not seem to find him, and they continued driving around.

Evidence did show foil and fentanyl in the passenger seat, and the toxicology report did show the drug was in her system upon autopsy. A doctor who testified explained that fentanyl would not cause a mental state that would spiral toward suicide, and instead concluded her death was in fact a homicide, due to a bullet to the back of her head.

Soloman claims that when Portillos snapped and grabbed his gun, he tried to stop her from pulling the trigger by swinging his arm but he couldn’t reach her in time. The Defense claimed that the bullet entry point was not in the back of the head, it was rear-right side of her head, which would have been consistent with the angle at which she grabbed the gun from near her hip, and then pointed it up to her head, and turning it slightly as Martinez swung hand at her.

From here, the Defense argues that Martinez couldn't have possibly been planning the murder as intently as the Prosecution was making it out to be.

They say that Martinez left the body at the riverbed for 45 minutes while he drove to get the machete from Walmart, when in reality the police could have been on the way to the scene, or another homeless person could have found the body during that time.

They said he sent messages to his roommate Mr. Mazzurco at 3 a.m. in a nervous panic, saying to call him back.

They claim that Martinez wouldn't have been Googling "Best disposal sights Pueblo" at 3 a.m., or "Best cleaners for blood" if he was as prepared as the Prosecution made him out to be.

The Defense also spent a considerable amount of time talking about Mr. Lovall as a reliable witness and source in the investigation, claiming that he helped Martinez in the act, and upon seeing his arrest, turned on him and reported the crime with Mr. Mazzurco, and cooperated with police by saying Martinez held him at gunpoint to avoid any punishment as a former felon himself.

Lovall, a man who is homeless and also an alcoholic was provided a stay in a hotel during the trial for his testimony, including food, clothing, and even 'shooter' bottles, which are 1.5-ounce bottles of liquor or other types of alcohol. That information was disclosed by the Judge to the jury prior to closing arguments being made.

The Defense lastly argued that detectives purposely chose to not send the alleged murder weapon, Martinez's 9mm pistol, to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to see whose fingers were on the trigger when it was pulled, to avoid having evidence clash with their hunch that Martinez was the culprit.

Amongst other claims, the Defense claimed that Martinez's posts to Reddit were a Red Herring, that did not imply any real intent to carry out murder, saying that even though their defendant had strange and dark sexual fascinations, it doesn't mean he did the crime.

They also believed that Martinez's phone call with his mother, alluding to the fact that he did "it", doesn't imply he carried out the murder but rather that he had given into his necrophilia urges, something he admitted to his mother in that phone call.

The Prosecution Final Arguments:

They argued to the Jury that Martinez has been a consistently unreliable source for law enforcement, having provided five different versions of how Ms. Portillos ended up deceased that night.

The first version was in his interview with detectives after his arrest, where he says he doesn't know how she died.

In the second version, he told detectives later in that same recorded interview, that Mr. Lovall had done it, and he had been the one to hand him the plastic bag with the severed hand in it that morning.

The third version was when on the phone with his, where he says that he "did it", and is dismissive and condescending about his mother's questions after explaining the situation.

The fourth version is where he says during trial this week that Ms. Portillos shot herself, before changing his phrasing to an 'accidental' suicide.

The People even pulled a clip from that interview with detectives, that he had dropped her off alive after driving around to look for her son.

The jury went into deliberation shortly afterward, around 3:45 p.m. on Wednesday to process the roughly three hours of arguments made by both sides, however, they were unable to reach a verdict by 6 p.m.

That jury will return on Thursday morning to resume deliberation over the three charges of First Degree Murder, Tampering with a Deceased Body, and Abuse of a Corpse, all of which are felonies.