TOOELE, Utah — Prosecutors charged a Utah man with homicide Friday, alleging he killed his grownup daughter, a Salt Lake Metropolis sheriff’s deputy.
Hector Ramon Martinez-Ayala, 54, of Tooele, confessed in a textual content message to his brother of creating “a giant mistake” earlier than fleeing the nation and utilizing his daughter’s financial institution card to withdraw cash, prosecutors stated in courtroom paperwork.
The sufferer was Marbella Martinez, 25, stated Tooele Police spokesman Colbey Bentley.
Martinez had began working as a corrections officer with the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Workplace in January. The division had memorialized her in a Fb put up Thursday, noting her loss of life was being investigated as “suspicious” by Tooele police.
She had lived along with her father in Tooele, west of Salt Lake Metropolis, till her father’s escalating sequence of obsessive texting, surveillance and stalking drove her to maneuver right into a lodge for just a few days, in keeping with courtroom paperwork.
The fees alleged her the stalking habits had gone on for months, and that the “textual content messages from the defendant to the sufferer are extra of the character of a jealous lover than a father.” Martinez additionally discovered a bag of her underwear in his room, prosecutors stated. Then, in mid-July he positioned a monitoring system on her car whereas she was overseas and later used it to seek out her and a romantic curiosity out by a climbing space, in keeping with the costs.
When she returned to their home on the morning of July 31, her father strangled her, investigators stated. Cameras on the property have been shortly disabled or disconnected, however Martinez-Ayala left loads of digital footprints, together with location knowledge on his cellphone and his daughter’s cellphone, in addition to a textual content message to his brother that afternoon, in keeping with investigators.
“My brother, you already know a lot I like you, I made a giant mistake, an unforgivable sin, now I’m too scared and I don’t know what to do. I believe I’ll by no means come again,” the message stated, in keeping with the charging paperwork.
He flew to California, then Texas, earlier than his cell data ceased, prosecutors stated. He was then filmed passing by way of customs in an undisclosed nation the place he used his brother’s identification.
Martinez’s physique was discovered on Aug. 1 in her bed room after police have been referred to as to do a welfare verify.
Along with homicide, Martinez-Ayala is charged with felonies associated to obstruction of justice, stealing a financial institution card, and stalking, in addition to misdemeanor id theft.
Martinez-Ayala doesn’t have an lawyer listed in Utah on-line courtroom data, and makes an attempt to seek out various strategies to contact him have been unsuccessful.
