[chris]

Iyanna Marie Colon was sentenced to life in prison on September 5, 2023, for the first-degree murder of her boyfriend, Maan Saleh Alblowi, in Portage, Michigan.

Colon was charged with open murder, arraigned in Kalamazoo County District Court on January 20, 2022, and held without bond. She argued self-defense at a three-day jury trial in Kalamazoo County Circuit Court. The jury convicted her on August 3, 2023. Circuit Judge Paul Bridenstine sentenced Colon, then 23, to the mandatory term for first-degree murder. Under Michigan law, that sentence carries no eligibility for parole.

Colon, 21, of Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Alblowi, 25, of Portage, had known each other for about two months. According to a probable cause document, she had lived with him for about a week at his apartment in the Briargate Apartments complex in the 400 block of Tudor Circle in Portage. Alblowi was a citizen of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government, through its consulate in the United States, said it was looking into his death along with Portage police.

The probable cause document, filed January 20, 2022, recounts Colon's account of Monday, January 17, 2022. She said they argued over loud music and she threw water in his face. She said he came at her, pulled her hair, caused her to hit her head and choked her. She said she choked him in return because she was in a life or death situation and acted in self-defense. After realizing he was not breathing, she cried and prayed over him for about an hour before accepting he was dead. She covered his body with a robe and dragged it into a bedroom closet, then slept for a few hours and went for a walk. Police later found the apartment had been cleaned. According to the document, she told family she cleaned it to hide her fingerprints.

On Tuesday, January 18, 2022, Colon contacted her family, and she and her parents went to the Portage Department of Public Safety headquarters to report the death. Officers found Alblowi dead in a closet at the apartment and reported finding evidence consistent with her statement.

Portage detectives interviewed Colon at the police department after she reported the death. A detective read her her rights before questioning. She described Alblowi becoming aggressive, pulling her hair, striking her head against the wall, throwing her on the bed and choking her with both hands until she blacked out. She said she then choked him until he stopped breathing. Near the end, a detective told her a search warrant for the apartment still had to be obtained and she would be held at the jail while the case went to the prosecutor.

Michigan Department of Corrections records list her conviction as first-degree premeditated murder by jury verdict, sentenced under the habitual offender statute applying to a person with two or more prior felony convictions. They list a minimum and maximum sentence of life, no release date and confinement at the Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility. The records also show she was on probation when Alblowi died, imposed in December 2021 after a guilty plea for resisting or obstructing a police officer.

[chris]

Part 2 of 2 of the recording described above.