Damon Perry charged with murder, says victim became ‘zombie’ watching ‘The Walking Dead’ marathon

A gruesome killing in Grants, New Mexico, last week unfolded after two friends drunkenly binge-watched “The Walking Dead” TV show and one feared the other was about “to change into a zombie,” police said on Monday.

Damon Perry, 23, was charged with an open count of murder after confessing to police that he killed his friend, Christopher Paquin, also 23, on Thursday, police said.

Mr. Perry is being held at the Cibola County detention center near Albuquerque on $800,000 cash bond.

Mr. Perry told police during an interview that the two had been drinking malt liquor and watching the TV series at an apartment in the town of Prewitt when Paquin began “to change into a zombie” and tried to bite him, allegedly giving way to a gruesome altercation that ended in the man’s death.

Police said Mr. Perry also struck his friend with a microwave oven and an electric guitar during the course of his rampage.

“It was one of the absolute worst [crime scenes] I’ve ever seen,” Sgt. Moses Marquez with the Grant Police Department told The Daily Beast.

After Mr. Perry allegedly attacked Mr. Paquin, he fled the apartment and began running around the complex with a knife, threatening neighbors, police said. The authorities soon after responded to a 911 call concerning a man with a weapon.

Police found Mr. Perry on the ground being subdued by two maintenance workers. Nearby, they located Mr. Paquin’s brutally beaten body, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

“If you’ve ever watched the show, you’d know that the only way to kill a zombie is to attack it in its head,” Sgt. Marquez, the lead detective in the case, told KOB 4 News. “Well, when police arrived in this complex, there was a knife inside the victim’s head.”

Mr. Perry faces a preliminary hearing scheduled for Nov. 3.

“I do believe his story behind this is true. He genuinely felt that his friend was changing into a zombie due to his inebriated state,” Sgt. Marquez continued. “Our department is dealing with something that I have never seen or heard of in my entire 13 years here.”