Cops: Man kills 'zombie' pal after binge-watching 'Walking Dead'

Matthew Diebel | USA TODAY

A New Mexico man who had been watching The Walking Dead told police that he beat his friend to death with an electric guitar and a microwave because the victim was turning into a zombie, according to reports in local media.

Moses Marquez, a sergeant in Grants, a small city about 80 miles west of Albuquerque, told local TV station KOB that 23-year-old Damon Perry of nearby Prewitt confessed to police that he had been binge-viewing The Walking Dead on Netflix and noticed that his pal Christopher Paquin, also 23, was beginning "to change into a zombie."

According to KOB, Grants police responded to an apartment building on Thursday after 911 callers said a man – later identified as Perry – was running around the complex threatening people with a knife.

When officers arrived, the station reported, two maintenance workers were holding Perry down. Meanwhile, an officer found Paquin's badly beaten body inside a nearby apartment.

Perry was taken to police headquarters and interviewed, KOB reported. There, he told detectives that Paquin had tried to bite him.

According to police, he then allegedly punched and kicked Paquin and also hit him with an electric guitar and a microwave oven, among other household items, reported Albuquerque TV station KRQE.

A local newspaper, the Cibola Beacon, quoted police as saying that Perry admitted that he and the victim were drinking a "large amount of alcohol."

Perry has been charged with an open count of murder and is being held at the Cibola County Detention Center, KOB reported. His attorney, Michael E. Calligan, did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press on Monday seeking comment.