June 20 – An Alcalde man has received the maximum possible sentence – one day short of 26.5 years in prison – for the rape and fatal assault of his mother.
State District Judge Jason Lidyard on Thursday convicted Erick Dwayne Martinez, 46, of crimes related to the 2021 death of his mother, 74-year-old Cora Martinez. A jury found Martinez guilty of second-degree murder in February , two counts of criminal sexual penetration, tampering with evidence, unlawful taking of motor vehicles and resisting arrest.
If prosecutors’ motion is granted, Martinez’s sentence could be extended by five years due to his status as a repeat offender.
The state’s willingness to use the full weight of the law against Martinez comes years too late for his mother; Court records show he was accused of inflicting violence on her for decades before taking her life.
Martinez violated a restraining order banning him from having contact with his mother when he went to her Española home on Aug. 1, 2021, and killed her in front of his own 5-year-old son, court records said.
He argued with his mother after she refused to give him money or lend him her car, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
“Than [he] proceeded to beat his mother to death in front of his young son,” the state’s sentencing memo said. “In an attempt to wake her up, the defendant allegedly threw water on his beaten, bruised and deceased mother. He also changed clothes, put away broken items and placed other items in the closet in an attempt to clean up the murder scene.”
Cora Martinez’s twin sister, who is blind, later told police she was in an adjacent room and heard her sister screaming. She believed Erick Martinez hit her sister, saying, “She covered her ears and started praying.”
The next day around 5 p.m., a family member called 911 to report that she had arrived at the house in Española, where the sisters lived with Erick Martinez’s son, and found Cora Martinez dead in her bed.
Her four-foot-tall, 90-pound body was badly bruised. She suffered numerous injuries to her head, chest, extremities and genitals, according to the state’s sentencing memo.
An autopsy determined her cause of death was head trauma and strangulation. A sexual abuse investigation revealed that she had also been raped.
Police later spotted Erick Martinez driving his mother’s car and arrested him after a short chase.
He told police he had been in a pushing match with his mother, and he had pushed her “and in the same motion his hands hit Cora, causing two bruised eyes.”
He didn’t want to hurt his mother, he told police, calling the incident an accident, according to an affidavit.
His mother had gone to sleep and he left, he said. When he returned the next morning around 4 a.m., he said, he found his mother dead in bed with blue lips.
He wasn’t supposed to be there and had a warrant out for his arrest, he said, so he told his mother’s sister to call the police and left.
Martinez has a long history of violence against women, Deputy District Attorney Anthony Long told the court Thursday. He had been arrested more than ten times for domestic violence in the past twenty years. In all cases, the person he was accused of harming was a woman.
Martinez’s mother was listed as a victim in five of the cases, according to a sentencing memo. In six others, his son’s mother was listed as a victim.
Despite several attempts by prosecutors to hold him without bond, his repeated failure to appear in court and violations of the terms of his release or probation, Martinez was repeatedly released into the community.
“The fact that his hatred and repeated violence toward women culminated in the defendant’s brutal rape and murder of the defendant’s mother should not come as a surprise to anyone,” Long wrote in the sentencing memo.
A family member read several letters to the court during Martinez’s sentencing hearing, including one from the deceased woman’s daughter, Crystal Trujillo. Erick Martinez was a threat to the family for years because of his poor choices and addictions that “fueled his uncontrollable anger issues,” she wrote.
“Erick has a history of very violent and physical abuse, without any remorse towards those he has hurt,” Trujillo wrote.
“He continually ignored restraining orders and had no fear of law enforcement because he was never held accountable,” she wrote, adding that there had been more than 100 calls about him. “Law enforcement knew Erick very well because every time Erick was arrested and charged, he was granted leniency by the court,” she wrote.
She wrote: “The system has clearly failed our family, but more importantly, it has failed my mother.”
Erick Martinez’s attorney asked the court to sentence him to 10 years in prison, citing his relatively low IQ — about 80, compared to an average of about 100 — and his desire to rehabilitate himself.
Martinez continued to deny that he raped and beat his mother on Thursday. He told the court in a rambling statement that “the evidence had been tampered with.”
“If I met my mother, if she fell, if she died, I did it,” he said. “But whatever happened to my mother afterwards, I am not responsible for that.”
He added: “Whoever did it must answer for it.”
