'Just a ghost:' Exhaustive search for car leads to murder arrest in Rio Rancho for 13-year-old's slaying

ALBUQUERQUE — It was around 4:30 a.m. on Aug. 18 when homicide detective Jordan Moeneart’s phone rang. Miles away, in Downtown Albuquerque, a car sat pockmarked with a dozen bullet holes.

The body of 13-year-old Michael Tubb lay still in the passenger seat. He would not see 14.

“I think it’s important to treat every case with the same amount of importance ... but it’s hard not to have an emotional response to a 13-year-old child being murdered,” Moeneart told the Journal during a recent ride-along. “... If you didn’t have an emotional response, I think it might have been time to move on and find a different career path.”

On Friday, a grand jury indicted 21-year-old Michael Flores on an open count of murder in the death of Tubb.

The path to find Flores was unique even for Moeneart, who has been with the Albuquerque Police Department since 2018.

Unlike many cases, there was no obvious connection between Tubb — who had been cruising and listening to music with friends, one of whom was shot in the leg — and a possible suspect or reason why. But through a review of hundreds of hours of video from 75 traffic and surveillance cameras, he identified a suspect vehicle: a Lexus sedan with no license plate.

Moeneart then searched through police databases and Motor Vehicle Division records to find the specific car but came up empty-handed time and time again.

“Those searches really produced no readily obvious leads for us to follow up on or investigate further. And so I really started to believe that this vehicle was just a ghost. It felt like it didn’t exist,” Moeneart said. “We had gone through everywhere that we could look for this car, and it just wasn’t there.”

The detective then took a different tact: skimming Facebook marketplace “every single day” for similar cars being sold. Weeks after a Crime Stoppers tip was released, showing a grainy photo of the suspect vehicle, a car showed up for sale that “matched all the details.”

“It was pretty exciting,” Moeneart said. “I tried to temper my expectations.”

The exhaustive search culminated in the Oct. 3 arrest of Flores at a home in Rio Rancho after police say he was tied to the homicide through both the car and cellphone records. Police searched multiple locations the same day and found the Lexus but not the firearm used in the shooting.

As Moeneart sat in his car, watching Flores get placed in the back of a police vehicle and having spoken to Tubb’s family to let them know, he reflected on the effects, which ripple in every direction.

“How devastating this is to these families in our community, and not necessarily even just the victim’s side,” he said. “The suspects that we arrest and are charged with these homicides, a lot of them are spending the majority of the rest of their lives behind bars. They’re being stripped away from their families, too.

“And a lot of them are these young kids who are indoctrinated into the culture of firearms and drugs and the things that we see in this city. And it’s devastating.”

Flores was initially charged with tampering with evidence in the case, and prosecutors filed a motion to detain him until trial, saying he “provided direct assistance in shooting and killing” Tubb.

“He then tampered with evidence by trying to dispose of the Lexus when learning it had been identified in a Crime Stoppers bulletin,” according to the motion. “... He cannot be relied upon to abide by the court’s conditions of release. He has already demonstrated a willingness to provide deception.”

However, court records show on Wednesday, 2nd Judicial District Court Judge Joseph Montaño denied the motion, and Flores was ordered to be released “upon availability of GPS monitor” to be placed on his ankle. He was released from the Metropolitan Detention Center on Thursday, less than 24 hours before the grand jury indicted him for murder.

“At this point there seems to be a lot more to uncover and the investigation is ongoing,” Flores’ attorney Rose Osborne told the Journal.

It was around 3:30 a.m. on Aug. 18 when officers headed to a Downtown car crash were flagged down about a shooting a few blocks away, at Fifth and Gold NW, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. Tubb was pronounced dead at the scene. His friend, a teen, was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the leg.

Police said surveillance video captured the Lexus pulling alongside the vehicle and “a muzzle flash and sparks” can be seen. Tubb’s friend told police he “did not know why the shooting happened and did not recognize the vehicle.”

On Sept. 6, Crime Stoppers release a grainy photo of the Lexus asking for tips and offering a reward.

Detectives had been regularly monitoring Facebook marketplace and, on Sept. 23, a car appearing to be “an exact match” popped up for sale, according to the complaint. Police noticed a car wash barcode sticker and chrome markings had been removed since the homicide but a shadow remained of where both used to be.

Police said they used an undercover Facebook account to ask the seller for the VIN number, which came back to Flores and his phone number. Police searched the cellphone records and found Flores’ phone was in the area of the homicide when it occurred and traced the same path as the one seen taken by the Lexus on various cameras.

On Sept. 26, the car was listed as “sold” on marketplace and, two days later, was again listed for sale by a woman who lives at a home in the 1100 block of Espanola NE, according to the complaint, which was the same area Flores was in before he drove Downtown on Aug. 17.