Man accused of killing man during house party in SW Albuquerque

A southwest Albuquerque house party turned deadly early Saturday after a man allegedly killed another man he thought was possessed by the devil while being high on cocaine and alcohol.

Caleb Parker-Arias, 23, of Albuquerque, is charged with an open count of murder. He is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center. A detention hearing has been scheduled for Thursday, according to court records.

Albuquerque Police Department spokesperson Gilbert Gallegos said in a news release on Sunday he was not releasing the other man’s identity until the family has been notified.

At about 10 a.m. Saturday, officers received a call of a dead man inside a home in the 400 block of Lindsay Place SW, near Bridge and Coors.

During the call, a man told police he found the man who “could have slipped and hit his head,” according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court.

When officers arrived, they found the dead man lying in a “pool of blood” curled up in a fetal position in a hallway between the kitchen and a bathroom, police said.

As officers started interviewing people, they found a “red blood-like substance” on a man — later identified as Parker-Arias — who told them it was Olive Garden sauce before saying he did not want to talk to police, the complaint states. The “substance” later tested presumptive positive for blood, police said.

Police said they saw bar stools that were “disturbed” in the kitchen area, including one with “a hair stuck to it.”

Earlier that day, a man told police, Parker-Arias came over and “began crying for approximately 15 minutes until Caleb told (him) that he had killed someone,” the complaint states.

The man told police Parker-Arias said he was drinking and having a conversation with a man about “spiritual stuff and religion” when it appeared “the devil (was) taking the male over” and attacked Parker-Arias, police said.

Parker-Arias, the man told police, said he “prayed to get the ‘demon’ out of the male” before putting him in a chokehold “for an unknown amount of time,” according to the complaint.

Another man told police Parker-Arias later told him that he “had to defend himself because the male was throwing chairs,” police said.

The man told police Parker-Arias “had been worried about the devil being out to get Caleb’s soul for several months,” police said. “... (The man) speculated that he felt that the amount of alcohol Caleb was drinking was making him ‘psychotic because he seems to be cool but then (expletive) like this will happen,” the complaint states.

The man told police Parker-Arias admitted to drinking and snorting cocaine during the party, police said.

Prosecutors filed a pretrial motion to keep Parker-Arias behind bars, saying “this behavior is dangerous and extreme.” His family declined to comment.