TOOELE, Utah — Prosecutors on Friday charged a Utah man with murder, alleging he killed his adult daughter, a Salt Lake City sheriff’s deputy.
Hector Ramon Martinez-Ayala, 54, of Tooele, admitted in a text message to his brother that he made a “big mistake” before fleeing the country and using his daughter’s debit card to withdraw money, prosecutors said in court documents.
The victim was Marbella Martinez, 25, said Tooele Police Department spokesman Colbey Bentley.
Martinez had started as a corrections officer with the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office in January. The department remembered her in a Facebook post Thursday, saying her death was being investigated by Tooele police as “suspicious.”
She lived with her father in Tooele, west of Salt Lake City, until her father became increasingly obsessive about texting, monitoring and stalking her, and she was forced to stay in a hotel for several days, according to court documents.
The charges alleged that her stalking behavior had been going on for months and that “defendant’s text messages to the victim were more of the nature of a jealous lover than a father.” Martinez also found a bag containing her underwear in his room, prosecutors said. Then, in mid-July, he placed a tracking device on her vehicle while she was out of the country and later used it to track her and a romantic interest at a hiking trail, the charges said.
When she returned to their home on the morning of July 31, her father strangled her, investigators said. Cameras on the property were quickly disabled or disconnected, but Martinez-Ayala left behind extensive digital evidence, including location data on his phone and his daughter’s phone, as well as a text message to his brother that afternoon, investigators said.
“My brother, you know how much I love you, I made a big mistake, an unforgivable sin, now I’m too scared and I don’t know what to do. I think I’ll never come back,” the message read, according to charging documents.
He flew to California and then Texas before his cell data stopped, prosecutors said. He was then filmed going through customs in an unidentified country, using his brother’s identification.
Martinez’s body was found in her bedroom on August 1 after police were called to conduct a welfare check.
In addition to murder, Martinez-Ayala is also charged with crimes related to obstruction of justice, bank card theft and stalking, as well as identity fraud.
Martinez-Ayala does not have an attorney listed in Utah’s online court records. Attempts to contact him by other means were unsuccessful.
