Albuquerque woman, 22, stabbed to death over spilled dog water

Esmeralda Romero, 22, was stabbed to death on July 20 at an Albuquerque apartment following a dispute with her downstairs neighbor over water spilled from a dog bowl, according to police. The neighbor, identified by police as Michael Cain, faces a murder charge and is being held in jail pending trial.

The killing happened outside the leasing office of the Albuquerque Encore Apartments near Eubank and Lomas, police said. Investigators told Romero’s family that video shows Romero was stabbed by the neighbor outside the office.

Romero’s mother, Maria Rodriguez, said her daughter called her that day about the downstairs neighbor. Rodriguez said Romero told her the neighbor had yelled at her in front of her young sisters about water from a dog bowl spilling onto his patio.

“That was the last time I talked to her. And then I got a phone call about 45 minutes later. That she was gone,” Rodriguez said.

Romero, 22, had been working toward joining the Air Force.

“She wasn’t just my daughter. She was my best friend. She was my everything,” Rodriguez said.

Romero’s boyfriend of three years, Jonah Bejarano, said he struggled with the news. “In that moment I felt like such a big part of me was just ripped away,” he said.

Bejarano described Romero as “a very loving person, a woman who was driven by her love and her faith in Jesus.”

Rodriguez recalled how her daughter encouraged her during difficult times. “In the moments when I felt like I couldn’t keep going. She always reminded me, Mom. She said, We have Jesus on our side, so we’ll get through anything,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said she now holds onto everyday memories. “I did ask her at one point, I said, why do you take everybody’s stuff? She’s like, because it reminds me of you guys and I always have a piece of you with me. I used to, used to annoy me so much, but now I just, I’d give anything for her to come and just steal another one of my shirts,” she said.

“It hurt, it hurt to know that somebody would want to hurt my daughter knowing how loving and how caring she was and how much she cared about people,” Rodriguez said.