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Community Forum · Est. 2006
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09-06-2026, 10:32 AM
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Robert Mondrian-Powell State Police Interview in the Death of Elvira Segura
A New Mexico judge in June 2018 dismissed with prejudice the second-degree murder case against Robert Mondrian-Powell in the death of Elvira Segura, ruling that the state violated his constitutional right to a speedy trial and barring the charges from being refiled. Mondrian-Powell was never tried or convicted. Segura, 67, was a longtime Santa Fe librarian who had retired by the time of her death. She lived in Nambe, an unincorporated community in Santa Fe County north of Santa Fe. She was shot at her home in early September 2016. Neighbors reported hearing gunshots roughly three weeks before New Mexico State Police found her badly decomposed body in a bathroom on September 27, 2016. The state Office of the Medical Investigator could not determine a cause of death. Mondrian-Powell, 57, also known as Robert Boykin, had been living in Segura's house and had ties to the El Paso and Las Cruces area. He told police he met Segura around 2001 while managing a bookstore that did business with the city library where she worked. They became socially friendly several years later. He said he moved into her home during the second week of August 2012 because he was homeless, providing cooking, gardening, repairs and property cleanup in exchange for room and board. Investigators concluded that Mondrian-Powell may have remained in the house with Segura's body for several weeks after the shooting before leaving for southern New Mexico. State Police tracked him to Las Cruces, about 300 miles south, and arrested him on October 14, 2016. He was booked into the Dona Ana County Detention Center on an open count of murder. During an interview that day at a State Police office in Las Cruces, a detective told Mondrian-Powell that the questioning was voluntary and he was free to leave. For most of the first half hour, he answered questions about Segura, when he moved in and his work around the house, and said he had not seen her in more than a month. About 40 minutes into the interview, he said he shot her. The channel that published the recording states that the admission continues to roughly the 44-minute mark. Because the medical investigator could not establish a cause of death, the statement became the center of the state's case. Mondrian-Powell was charged with first-degree murder in October 2016. The charge was reduced to second-degree murder when the case moved to District Court in December 2016. He spent more than 20 months in jail awaiting trial through roughly 25 hearings. State District Judge T. Glenn Ellington declined to reverse the dismissal on reconsideration. In a written decision reported on September 20, 2018, he cited a witness list filed 63 days late, a medical examiner who repeatedly failed to appear despite being listed as an expert witness, a firearm examiner's report noting defects that was withheld for eight months, and untimely responses to defense motions. Ellington wrote that Mondrian-Powell had been prejudiced by oppressive pretrial incarceration of more than 20 months. Mondrian-Powell was released and remains free. District Attorney Marco Serna said the state would appeal, but the outcome of that appeal is not known. The video is a police interview-room recording running about 66 minutes and covers the October 14, 2016 questioning in Las Cruces. It presents the interview itself without narration or a presenter.
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