Mesa police officers described the chaotic and confusing scene that left a woman dead at the front door of an Arizona attorney general investigator's home. The information comes from a report recently obtained by the Arizona Republic.
Maria Lewis, 32, was found with a gunshot wound on DuLance Morin’s doorstep in the Eastmark neighborhood of Mesa on the early morning of Feb. 28, 2026, police initially reported.
A grand jury in September 2026 indicted Morin on negligent homicide charges. He pleaded not guilty to the charges on Oct. 8.
A 350-page Mesa police report provided new details on how the scene unfolded minutes after officers arrived but did little to explain what happened prior to their arrival.
An internal email sent on March 12 to Attorney
General Kris Mayes and top staff stated that, based on a police briefing, Morin told investigators loud banging on his front door awakened him around 2:40 a.m., with multiple people inside the home attesting to hearing the person outside say she was armed.
Those details were redacted in the Mesa police report, including interviews with witnesses and Morin.
Here’s what the police report disclosed.
Morin’s wife makes 911 call
At about 2:44 a.m., Audrey Morin, the man’s wife, called 911 and “immediately” requested police and medical assistance, the report said.
She told the dispatcher to “please hurry." She was on the phone with Mesa dispatch for about six minutes, according to the report.
An officer, who was nearby responding to a different call, arrived on scene within minutes of the dispatch. The officer wrote they were driving with the windows down, “when I heard a loud bang.”
Upon exiting the car, the officer found a woman on her back and “immediately started chest compressions” and remained doing lifesaving measures until Mesa Fire Department arrived seven minutes later, the report said.
The department stopped “all lifesaving efforts and pronounced Lewis deceased” at 3:11 a.m., according to the police report.
Several officers responded to the scene, and one wrote in a supplemental report the radio traffic “indicated the scene was one of chaos and confusion.”
Officers moved DuLance Morin further inside the home and asked him how he knew Lewis, to which he responded saying he did not know her, the report said.
The police report also showed investigators brought in a locksmith expert to review the deadbolt and locking components of a door.
Family members stood at the driveway near the shooting
About 12 minutes following the initial dispatch call, officers noticed a man with two children standing at the end of the driveway facing the front of the house, according to the police report.
Albert Mendivil asked the officer, “Is that my wife?”
The officer responded, saying he had just gotten to the scene and didn't have an answer for him, the report said.
He provided officers with Lewis’ wallet that included her Salt-River Indian Tribal identification card and described what she was wearing as well as her arm tattoos.
He told officers he knew DuLance Morin but not by name. He stated they spoke “a few times” and had “brief friendly encounters," the report said.
Mendivil said he wanted to lie down with his children and went back home, according to the report.
After officers notified him that Lewis had died, they arranged for breakfast to be brought to him and his family, the report said.
Lewis was a mother of seven children, ranging from two to 12 years old, according to a GoFundMe fundraiser organized by her sister-in-law, Carmela Leal.
Further interviews with Mendivil were redacted.
Neighbors noted hearing loud noises
Two neighbors spoke with officers and described hearing overnight disturbances.
Hilary Whiten told officers she woke up around 2:20 a.m. because her dog was “stirring” and heard two loud “bang” or “boom” sounds outside. She said she didn’t check to see what caused the sound or hear anything else, the report said.
Tyler Buchberger was awake until the early hours of Feb. 28 playing video games, he told officers.
“When I got off I heard a weird sound coming from outside,” Buchberger wrote in a police document. He initially thought it “sounded like someone having sex loudly outside,” he wrote.
In the report, officers wrote that Buchberger told them he heard a male yelling stop and a female screaming on or around the time of 2:15 a.m., the police report said.
He recorded a 40-second video and shared it with Mesa police, according to the report.
He stopped recording after the noise got quieter and then took his dog out front to go to the bathroom, he wrote in the document.
Officers obtain evidence including gas station footage
Nearly a month following the shooting, investigators found footage of Lewis at a QuikTrip just an hour prior to the incident, according to the report.
The video showed that at about 1:37 a.m., Lewis entered the QuikTrip parking lot and walked into the convenience store to purchase “two small spherical drinks.”
She then sat in her car for nearly 15 minutes and then drove off at 1:54 a.m., the report said.
The internal email stated Lewis was working a DoorDash shift late Feb. 27 into the early morning of Feb. 28. She returned home between 2 a.m. and 2:30 a.m., according to the email. Her husband told police she smelled like alcohol when she arrived, and the two argued before she left the home, the email said. Those details were redacted in the police report.
What’s next for DuLance Morin?
DuLance Morin remained employed in an administrative position at the Attorney General’s Office, spokesperson Richie Taylor said.
In a previous statement to The Arizona Republic, Taylor said he would remain in the position “unless he is convicted in a court of law.”
At the Oct. 8 arraignment hearing, a judge ordered DuLance Morin to remain released under pre-trial services and to have no access to firearms.
Morin was due back in court on Nov. 24.
Republic reporters Jose R. Gonzalez and Perry Vandell contributed to this story.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Report reveals chaos after fatal shooting at AG investigator's home
