BELOVED DRAG QUEEN BRUTALLY SLAIN

A popular Albuquerque New Mexico Drag Queen (pictured above in and out of drag) was the victim of that city's first fatal shooting of 2008...

Patrick Murphy was the queen of Albuquerque and New Mexico's drag scene.

She, as most people referred to the dainty 5-foot-3-inch man, could sew shimmering gowns for her drag performances in a matter of hours.

She could command the attention of a whole room with a performance as Diana Ross, then throw back a few drinks, or more, at her favorite bars.

She held the proudly won title of Miss New Mexico Gay Rodeo Association 2008.

"She was an icon in the community," said Wade Kuenzi, assistant manager and bartender at Murphy's favorite bar, Sidewinders Ranch gay bar near Central and Wyoming boulevards.

"Everyone knew Patricia," he said.

But few knew the man accused of killing her Jan. 8 by shooting her several times in the head.

Albuquerque police arrested Dana Madsen, 33, just hours after he called police reporting a shooting at his apartment near Gibson and San Mateo boulevards Southeast.

He'd been a little odd when he had started to frequent Sidewinders shortly after moving to Albuquerque in October from El Paso, patrons there said.

He'd wear a cowboy hat and talk about riding bulls. He was attracted to the drag queens at the bar, patrons said.

Of all the drag queens, Murphy, 39, was the one who started visiting him at his home and socializing with him at the bar.

The day of her death, Kuenzi said both Murphy and Madsen were in foul moods - Madsen because of a fight with his family.

"I served them their drinks, and then they left," Kuenzi said.

Police say the two had been drinking at Madsen's apartment, too. Then they got in some sort of fight.

Madsen told detectives that before he shot Murphy several times in the head - the last time to "put her out of her misery" because she was laying on the ground screaming and shaking - Murphy called him an "ass."

It's language Murphy's friends say was typical.

"She was feisty," said Sharon Hardin, who knew Murphy for 12 years. "But she didn't go around starting anything."

And she wasn't violent.

"She knew how to push buttons, and she did," said Shawn Arquette, Murphy's ex-boyfriend of 14 years. "But she never would physically do anything."

So the rest of Madsen's story - that Murphy was wielding a pocket knife and threatening to kill him in his sleep - isn't so believable, Murphy's friends say.

Even after a brutal attack by a mentally unstable man outside Sidewinders in August 2006, Arquette said he had to fight to get Murphy to carry pepper spray.

"He said he didn't want to hurt anybody, even if they wanted to hurt him," Arquette said.

The attacker, John Hevener, was shot to death three months after the attack by Bernalillo County sheriff's deputies as he tried to use a knife inside state District Court.

While a bit relieved, Murphy wasn't happy about Hevener's death, Arquette said.

"She had a heart of gold," Hardin said.

Murphy, half Acoma American Indian and half black, was adopted as an infant. Murphy's adoptive mother, sister and brother died, leaving him with his adoptive father, Hardin said.

"They had a relationship, not a bad one," Hardin said. "But she did her own thing, you know."

Murphy was working toward a nursing degree and was a caretaker to an elderly man suffering a broken hip.

Murphy had also recently adopted a puppy, a sort of salve for her distress about her breakup with Arquette.

The elderly man is now caring for Murphy's puppy.

Arquette and friends are cleaning out Murphy's trailer on General Bradley Street, just one block north of Sidewinders on Central Avenue.

And the community that held Patricia in such esteem have a memorial planned for Sunday evening at Sidewinders, a last night of "Reflections" of Patricia.

Meanwhile, Madsen, who once faced attempted murder charges in El Paso, is being held in the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center in lieu of $1 million cash or surety bond.