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COURTS

Trial begins in 2021 East Central shooting death 

Shell casing found at the scene matches handgun used in California shooting

Published Modified

Frank Porras was on a "quest for drugs" that led him to fatally shoot a man outside an East Central gas station in 2021, prosecutors alleged Monday on the first day of Porras' trial.

Frank Porras

Porras is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated burglary in the Jan. 20, 2021, shooting death of 34-year-old Matthew Werth at the Quick Track gas station in the 12500 block of Central Avenue.

Prosecutors allege that Porras, 40, fled to California shortly after Werth's killing, where he was arrested on a charge of attempted murder in connection with a Jan. 28, 2021, shooting. Porras was arrested days after the homicide in Long Beach, California, when he allegedly shot a gas station clerk, who survived a gunshot to the face.

At the time of his arrest in California, Porras was in possession of a handgun that forensics testing found matched a shell casing found at the scene of Werth's killing, prosecutor Gabriel Kallen said in opening statements.

"This case is about a gun," Kallen told jurors Monday. "This case is also about a quest for drugs." Porras was "boosting and stealing stuff to turn a profit" to buy drugs at the time of Werth's killing, he said.

Porras' attorney, John McCall, told jurors that Albuquerque police made a "rush to judgment" after they learned that the handgun seized in California matched a shell casing found at the scene of Werth's killing.

More than a year after Werth's killing, an Albuquerque police detective newly assigned to the case developed Porras as a suspect based on the firearms evidence gathered by police in California, McCall said in opening statements Monday.

An earlier investigation identified two suspects in Werth's killing, both of whom were later excluded as suspects after the Albuquerque Police Department learned of Porras' arrest in the California case, he said.

"The only other thing that we believe the evidence will show, besides this gun, is that (Porras) did live not far from the Quick Track" where Werth was fatally shot, McCall told jurors. Prosecutors allege that Porras lived at the time in the 300 block of Coyote Lane SE, less than a mile from the gas station.

A police spokesman said in 2022 that an officer who had recently graduated from APD's detective academy was assigned to follow up on the case and "developed new evidence" linking Porras to Werth's death.

Albuquerque police found Werth dead from a single gunshot wound in the parking lot of the Quick Track, near the intersection at Central and Western Skies.

Security video showed that a man walked up to Werth and the two spoke briefly before the man shot Werth with a purple and black gun, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court.

Police learned Porras booked a one-way Amtrak ticket to California two days after Werth's death. Police in California later informed Albuquerque police that Porras was a suspect in an attempted murder and attempted robbery in the shooting of a store clerk in Long Beach.

Olivier Uyttebrouck covers the court system. You can reach him at olivier@abqjournal.com.