ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—The killing this week of a 10-year-old Albuquerque girl who police say was drugged, raped and dismembered is just the latest horrific child slaying case for New Mexico, which has the nation’s highest youth poverty rate and a state government that has had heavily publicized difficulties protecting children from abuse.
Victoria Martens was not known to have been a victim of previous violent abuse. But officials acknowledged Friday that the man accused of injecting her with methamphetamine before raping her was not being monitored by probation officers or tested for drugs as mandated by a judge last year.
In that case, 31-year-old Fabian Gonzales was arrested for beating another woman in a car with a baby inside it while the woman was driving and ended up pleading no contest to two misdemeanor crimes that kept him out of jail. Corrections department officials said Friday they never got the judge’s order for him to be supervised by probation officers.
