Dallas Man Murdered Friend Who Went to Pee, Police Say

Martin Urbina told police he didn’t remember shooting his friend. The last he could recall, it was not long after midnight on Thursday and he and the friend, Gilberto Perez, were sitting on his West Dallas front porch. Perez walked to the side of the house to take a piss. Urbina followed, carrying a pistol he’d stolen from another friend. The next thing Urbina knew, he was waking up next to his friend’s bullet-riddled body with a pistol in his hand.

Police arrested Urbina that afternoon, showing up at 1:48 p.m. to investigate a “possible dead person” after a 911 caller reported spotting a motionless body in his backyard. Urbina was standing on the front porch with his hands in the air when the squad cards arrived. An officer noticed dried blood on his clothes. “I killed him, man,” he told police, according to an arrest affidavit. “I shot him. I had to defend myself.” Other officers had made their way into the backyard and found Perez’s body, legs extended into an open doorway, shot multiple times in the face and abdomen.

Urbina waived his Miranda rights and told police about being on the porch and having the gun and following his friend to the side of the house before blacking out. After he came to, he said he’d picked up the spent cartridge casings and thrown them into the alley, then fished Perez’s flip phone from his pocket. He started to hide the body but, according to police, “claimed that he became too tired and was unable to get [Perez]’s body into the garage.” A search warrant turned up the suspected murder weapon and Perez’s cell phone, both of which had been hidden between couch cushions.

Urbina is in Lew Sterrett Jail on a capital murder charge. In addition to Urbina’s confession, homicide detectives determined that he and Perez had been drinking on the night of the murder and had had “a distrubance” prior to the murder.

Send your story tips to the author, Eric Nicholson.