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Police took some time to decide whether the person found shot to death at an apartment complex near Gibson and San Mateo boulevards was a man or a woman.

They now say the victim of the city's first homicide is a man, Patrick Murphy, 39.

"I don't know what he called himself, because he's not around to say," Albuquerque Police Department spokesman John Walsh said.

Murphy appeared to be a woman when police arrived at the Brandywood Park Apartments where suspect Dana Madsen, 33, told police "there's a girl upstairs who didn't deserve to be shot," according to a Metro Court criminal complaint.

Murphy had been shot several times in the head with a handgun, which was also found at the scene, according to the complaint.

Madsen called police Tuesday at about 5:15 p.m. to report a shooting at his apartment, No. 22 at 5851 Anderson Ave. S.E.

When officers arrived, they found a body, with long brown hair, face down near the door.

Because police don't move a body until it has been processed by the Office of the Medical Investigator and crime-scene technicians, they at first weren't sure if the body was a man or a woman.

Madsen only referred to Murphy as a female and a "drag queen," according to the complaint.

Madsen said Murphy had been drinking and started arguing with him and threatening him with a knife.

Madsen said he got a gun from his bedroom for protection. When he saw a small pocket knife in Murphy's hand, he shot Murphy in the head, according to the complaint.

Murphy dropped to the ground, then Madsen shot Murphy in the head again, but Murphy was still "shaking and screaming" so another shot was fired into his head to "put him out of his misery," the complaint says.

Madsen was "calm and cooperative" with police, Walsh said.

Madsen is in the Metropolitan Detention Center on an open count of murder and is being held in lieu of $1 million cash or surety bond.