Poki Roni Murder Trial: Officer Testifies Defendant Admitted To Killing Mother

Testimony of a confession along with courtroom quarrels dominated day two of the Poki Roni Ranch murder trial.

Travis Kirchner, 58, is accused of killing his elderly mother in September 2008. Patricia Kirchner’s carbon monoxide-poisoned body was found in the garage of one of the ranch’s homes.

Wednesday afternoon, prosecution witness Jorge Minjares, an El Paso police officer, told the jury he was the first to talk to Kirchner shortly after police responded to the Lower Valley horse ranch on an “unattended death” call.

Minjares testified that the only form of identification Kirchner had on himself was a passport in his back pocket. The officer said that for reasons unknown to him, the passport was wet.

Minjares said Kirchner asked him if his mother was dead, then said, “I (expletive)’d up. I killed her. I wanted to kill myself, but I killed her.”

The defense maintains that Kirchner and his mother had entered into a suicide pact.

Minjares said the defendant told him he wanted to kill himself after he “lost everything” as the result of lawsuits.

Earlier in the day, Maureen Richter, a friend of the defendant’s, told the court that it is widely known that Travis Kirchner’s father and sister committed suicide.

Without the jury in the room, defense attorney Dolph Quijano Jr. told the judge he plans to show that suicide was a pattern in the family.

Things became heated between Quijano and the assistant district attorney prosecuting the case with many objections launched from both sides.

At one point, District Judge Mary Anne Bramblett told both men, “Listen, you two: You are not going to argue with each other in this courtroom.”

The jury has not been sequestered. Trial resumes at 9 a.m. Thursday.