Iyanna Colon (inset) in a Kalamazoo County Prosecutor’s Office mug shot, (R) the scene of the homicide (WWMT screengrab)
A Michigan woman convicted of strangling her boyfriend of two months to death after an argument over loud music was sentenced Tuesday to spend the rest of her natural life behind bars.
Iyanna Marie Colon, now 23, and her defense lawyer said all along that she killed 25-year-old Maan Saleh Alblowi in self-defense, but the defendant had an adjudicated history of violence.
A probable cause affidavit detailed that Colon and the victim had been living together at his Portage apartment for roughly a week when an argument over loud music turned deadly on Jan. 17, 2022.
The suspect claimed that during the argument she threw water in Alblowi’s face and strangled him to death in self-defense, believing the “situation was life or death.” Colon claimed that Alblowi ran at her, dragged her by her hair, and choked her first to the point of blacking out.
Authorities said Colon admitted to investigators that she prayed over Alblowi’s body for an hour or more and cried before she knew for sure that he was dead. Colon then wrapped the victim’s body in a robe, dumped his remains in a closet, slept for hours on Alblowi’s mattress, went out for a walk because she was “[t]ired of looking at him,” and tried to wipe her fingerprints from the scene of the homicide at the Briargate Apartment complex.
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It wasn’t until the next day that law enforcement learned of the killing, which Colon had told her parents about that morning. Investigators found Alblowi’s body while Colon was at their headquarters. He died of mechanical asphyxiation.
The Kalamazoo County Prosecutor’s Office had to contend with the fact Circuit Judge Paul Bridenstine had excluded from evidence certain admissions Colon made to police.
In that reported ruling, the judge noted Colon had twice asked for an attorney while down at the station.
“Yeah, I’m just, like, remaining silent,” Colon reportedly said one of the times.
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Despite the ruling and her self-defense claims, however, Colon was convicted in early August by a jury of her peers of premeditated first-degree murder after three days.
While defense lawyer Benjamin Norg reportedly asserted that his client wouldn’t be alive if she hadn’t killed Alblowi, jurors sided instead with the prosecution — the office where Norg himself used to work as a prosecutor.
According to MLive, Kalamazoo County Assistant Prosecutor Amy Sheppard said during closing arguments that Colon “intentionally” killed Alblowi and that she “did it because she thought about it.”
The report said that Judge Bridenstine sentenced Colon to serve the rest of her natural life in state prison since the jury treated her as “a third habitual offender.”
Michigan court records reviewed by Law&Crime show that Colon was sentenced to serve jail time after pleading guilty in March 2021 and October 2021 in two separate assault cases — one against a police officer and the other reportedly involving an assault on another man with a metal pipe.
“The jury disregarded your defense and found you responsible for the killing of Mr. Alblowi,” the judge reportedly said.
Colon’s attorney told Law&Crime in a statement that there “was a substantial amount of evidence to support her self-defense claim.”
“I’m disappointed and surprised the jury found any evidence of premeditation to convict on 1st degree, let alone enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt,” attorney Benjamin Norg said. “My client is exploring possible appellate remedies.”
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