Fabio Gomez was sentenced to death by the State of Arizona for the murder of Joan Morane
According to court documents Fabio Gomez would kidnap Joanne Morane in 2001. The woman would be sexually assaulted and murdered
Fabio Gomez would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
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ASPC-E Rynning D/Row
FABIO E. GOMEZ 177075
PO Box 3400
Florence, AZ 85132
United States
Fabio Gomez Case
2 Joan Morane lived in the Chandler Park Tower Apartments in Chandler, Arizona On December 2, 1999, a friend stopped by Joan’s apartment after work. The door of the apartment was unlocked and various items inside were in disarray.
¶ 3 Fabio Gomez lived across the landing from Joan. Shortly after 5:00 p.m., a resident of the apartment complex heard a woman screaming “No!” from Gomez’s bathroom and called 911. Chandler police officers responded to the call.
¶ 4 When the officers arrived, Joan’s friend informed them that Joan was missing. After looking through Joan’s apartment, the officers departed.1 Joan’s friend remained and attempted to talk to neighbors about the 911 call. Gomez initially did not respond to knocks on his door, but later emerged, denying that he had seen Joan or heard any screaming. Shortly thereafter, Gomez left his apartment to pick up his live-in girlfriend.
¶ 5 Joan still had not returned, so her friend telephoned Joan’s ex-husband, who arrived at the complex at about 6:00 p.m. The ex-husband found two red buttons outside of Gomez’s apartment door, and Chandler police were again summoned. An officer returned, collected the buttons, and left the complex at approximately 8:00 p.m.
¶ 6 Fabio Gomez and his girlfriend returned at about the same time as the officers were leaving. The girlfriend saw blood in their apartment and complained to Gomez. Gomez told her that earlier that day he had gone outside to smoke, leaving the door open, and that a cat had come in and scratched their baby. Gomez said that he bludgeoned the cat to death in the bathroom and threw it into a dumpster at the complex. The girlfriend went down to look in the dumpster but saw no cat; on returning to the apartment she discovered more blood.
¶ 7 Chandler police officers came back to the complex later that evening and briefly questioned Gomez from outside of his apartment. Gomez again claimed to know nothing about Joan’s disappearance or sounds of screaming coming from his apartment. The police returned to the complex several times during the early morning of December 3. On one of these occasions, an officer saw Gomez on the staircase carrying a deflated yellow raft to his girlfriend’s vehicle. Gomez again denied any knowledge of Joan’s disappearance.
¶ 8 The officer returned about an hour later and looked into the girlfriend’s car with his flashlight. After the officer noted what appeared to be two small bloodstains on the yellow raft, he called for backup, went upstairs, and asked Gomez whether he and another officer could enter the apartment. Gomez agreed.
¶ 9 Once inside, one officer saw what appeared to be blood spots on the living room carpet. He asked Fabio Gomez where the blood had come from; Gomez replied that his girlfriend had cut her foot. The officers obtained Gomez’s consent to search the apartment and noticed more blood on the bathroom walls.
¶ 10 In the bedroom, an officer found the girlfriend asleep, awakened her, and asked if she had cut her foot. She replied she had not; the officer looked at her feet and found no injuries. He then asked her about the blood in the living room, and she related Gomez’s explanation about the cat.
¶ 11 The officers then asked Fabio Gomez what he had done with the cat. Gomez said that he had put it in a garbage bag and thrown it into a dumpster at a nearby restaurant. After radioing for a search of the restaurant dumpster, officers noticed more spots of what appeared to be blood in the bathroom and by the front door and found wet throw rugs hung up to dry in the bathroom.
¶ 12 A search of the restaurant dumpster proved futile. However, an officer subsequently saw what appeared to be dried blood on the front of a dumpster at the apartment complex. Inside the dumpster, an officer found a blanket, a newspaper, and a woman’s blouse, all with dried blood on them. A more thorough search revealed Joan’s body, clad only in a red nightshirt missing buttons similar to the ones found outside Gomez’s apartment2 IN NEARBY DUMPSTERs, the police found a pair of stained shorts, duct tape with blood on it and hairs attached to it, and bloodstained socks and washcloths.
¶ 13 Subsequent searches of Gomez’s apartment revealed bloodstains on the walls and floor and a large bloodstain near the patio door that had been covered up with several towels and a pillow. A bloodstained comforter was found inside the washing machine. The police also found socks and towels in the apartment similar to the bloodstained items in the dumpsters. They also found a receipt dated December 1, 1999, showing the purchase of duct tape; the only duct tape found in the apartment was a small strip stuck to the carpet.
¶ 14 Vaginal swabs taken from Joan’s body revealed the presence of semen. Subsequent DNA testing identified the semen as Gomez’s and the bloodstains in the apartment as Joan’s. No cat blood was ever found in the apartment.
¶ 15 At trial, Gomez denied any knowledge of or involvement in Joan’s disappearance and murder. He admitted to having sex with Joan but claimed it was consensual. He again claimed that the blood in his apartment was from a cat
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/az-supreme-court/1266746.html
