Post by ex member on Jun 4, 2005 10:16:29 GMT -5
His execution is scheduled for Tuesday, June 7, 2005 6:00pm. 
HoustonChronicle.com - Martinez, fearing he'll kill again, is ready to die HoustonChronicle.com -- www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section:
Front page
June 4, 2005, 1:45AM
Killer's 1-word creed: violence
Fearing he'll kill again, dreading a prison life, Alex Martinez is
ready to be executed
By ALLAN TURNER
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
LIVINGSTON - The blue prison tattoos on Alex Martinez's arms and torso,
as intense in imagery as anything on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,
tell the story of his life. Somewhere, surely, are references to his
wretched childhood, the endless beatings and psychological abuse.
But it's the tombstones, macabre tributes to the women whose throats he
slashed, that are most chilling.
"Maria," reads one, referring to Maria Martinez, the stepmother who
miraculously survived his brutal attack in August 2001. "To be continued."
The second cuts to the heart of what brought the 28-year-old one-time
Houston fast-food worker to death row. Beneath the inscription, "RIP,"
are a date, a woman's name and the sum, "$300." Seemingly cryptic, the
tattoo is a crude ink-and-skin memorial to South Houston prostitute
Helen Joyce Oliveros, who, on Aug. 12, 2001, was murdered by Martinez
during a squabble over her fee.
Martinez admitted that the slashings, just weeks after he was freed
from prison where he served a sentence for attempted murder, might seem
extreme responses to minor provocations — unless one believes in
violence.
"Yeah, I believe in violence," said Martinez, who is scheduled to be
executed Tuesday and become the ninth killer to die in the state's
Huntsville death house this year. "I was raised up with violence. I was hit,
kicked, hollered at. It destroyed my family. Even in here (prison) I'm
subject to violence. Even the state will be violent when I'm killed."
Partly out of fear that he will kill again, partly out of dread of
spending his life behind bars, Martinez said in a recent death row
interview that he wants to die. To the consternation of his appeals attorney,
Houston lawyer Pat McCann, the killer has insisted that all efforts to
save his life be halted.
"I think Alexander's life still has value," he said. "I wish he would
change his mind."
McCann thinks a key element of the prosecution's case — testimony by
his client's Harris County cellmate, Cesar Rios — is faulty.
"This is a case that never should have been a capital case to start
with," McCann said. "A lying jailhouse snitch was one of the key elements
in making a murder case a capital case. ... If Alexander dies, he'd be
dying for a lie. That's not justice."
In rejecting Martinez's initial, automatic appeal in March 2004,
however, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found that other evidence was
"consistent with and corroborated" Rios' testimony. Evidence also
supported the accuracy of three confessions Martinez gave investigators after
his arrest.
"He's one of the scariest people I've encountered across the table,"
said Assistant District Attorney Tammy Thomas, lead Harris County
prosecutor in the case. "He seems to enjoy the kill. That's pretty apparent
from the trial transcript. He's not sorry."
"He is among the most dangerous individuals this forensic psychiatrist
has evaluated," Dr. Seth Silverman wrote after examining Martinez to
determine his competency to waive appeals.
"He has taken pride in his short temper and proclivity to extreme
violence. The violence has escalated through his life, including during his
incarceration. ... Mr. Martinez's decision to refuse his death penalty
appeal is a logical extension of his lifelong disrespect of his own, as
well as others' physical well-being."
Martinez, in the death row interview, affirmed that he likely would
kill again.
"Maybe not now," he said, "maybe not in 10 years. But someday, maybe 20
years from now, somebody would set me off. I give my life freely."
Psychologist Carmen Petzold found that Martinez suffered from "numerous
disorders," possibly stemming from his hellish childhood. Born to a
heroin addict, Martinez was placed for adoption with a family in which he
was verbally, physically and, he claimed, sexually abused by his new
mother. Martinez told officials he was "beaten every night until my
mother's hands hurt and she had to stop."
'His life just fell apart'
Martinez's adoptive mother, Velma Griffin, who raised the child from 15
months to nine years, when her marriage ended in divorce, denied all
the abuse allegations. Today, she prays for him and hopes his life will
be spared. She routinely attempts to visit him on death row, though on
each occasion he has rebuffed her, silently returning to his cell when
he determines the identity of his visitor.
"I feel very sad," she said. "I cry all the way home. I have to sit in
the car five to 10 minutes to compose myself. I just wanted him to know
that somebody loves him."
Griffin said Martinez's early years showed promise — as a Boy Scout he
was selected to address the Texas Senate. But after the divorce, when
she gave up custody of her four children to her ex-husband, "his life
just fell apart."
Martinez said the situation hardly improved when his adoptive father
remarried. His stepmother, he asserted, intensely disliked him and worked
to alienate his father.
"She wouldn't do anything," he said. "She'd wait until my dad came
home, and he'd hit me hard."
Martinez's father, stepmother and siblings could not be located for
comment.
By the time Martinez dropped out of the ninth grade, he was a steady
inhaler of spray paint fumes and similar substances. His adolescence and
young adulthood were marked by continual violent skirmishes — only
during three years was he free of the criminal-justice system, records
show.
"I always looked at it like everybody owed me something," Martinez
said. "My mentality was not giving a damn. I couldn't see myself in the
world for some reason. I was mad all the time. ... I always thought that I
could go right someday. I always thought that things would work out for
the best. And all the time I was getting further in the hole."
Deadly trail
In 1994, he stabbed a co-worker during an altercation at the pizza
restaurant at which they worked, resulting in a seven-year sentence for
attempted murder. He had been out of prison three weeks when he murdered
Oliveros, a 45-year-old prostitute with a history of narcotics offenses.
Martinez said he contacted the escort service for which Oliveros
worked. When Oliveros arrived at Martinez's home — he was staying at
Griffin's residence — the two quarreled over the woman's $300 fee.
In three statements to police, Martinez acknowledged that he had sex
with the woman, then killed her. In one, he admitted that he had taken
money and cocaine from her belongings. Martinez's county cellmate, Rios,
who received a reduced sentence for his testimony, told jurors the
killer told him he had placed a knife to the woman's throat as she gathered
her things to leave, engaged in sex, forced the knife into her throat,
then, to silence her, slashed her throat.
He then placed the corpse in a bedroom closet, retrieving it three days
later to dump it in a nearby vacant lot.
Prosecutors told jurors that to find Martinez guilty of capital murder
they could accept that he had robbed and/or sexually assaulted his
victim. It was not necessary that jurors agree on which felony he
committed. The court of criminal appeals upheld prosecutors' interpretation of
the law.
In his death row interview, Martinez said he took money and drugs in
the incident, but the theft was an afterthought, not a motivating factor.
He indicated the couple had engaged in consensual sex.
Residents of a well-kept South Houston neighborhood, where Oliveros
apparently lived with her parents, now deceased, would not comment on the
victim's descent into drug abuse and prostitution.
'Condemned forever'
On Aug. 23, 2001, Martinez slashed his stepmother's throat in an
unprovoked attack as his 8-year-old half-brother and 12-year-old half-sister
watched. The injured woman survived after spending nine days in the
hospital, five of them in intensive care. Martinez was arrested later the
same day after he confided his crimes to a relative in La Porte, who
notified police.
When police searched Martinez's bedroom the next day, they found blood
on the bed frame, wall, floor, closet shelves and door. Some of the
blood, said Assistant District Attorney Marie Munier, was from Oliveros,
some from Martinez. Because of irregularities the Houston Police
Department's crime lab, the blood samples were tested a second time with the
same results, she said.
Behind bars, Martinez seethed.
He demanded to be housed "with my people," members of the violent
Mexican Mafia prison gang.
He denounced those who might have been sympathetic to him, notably the
Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, for failing to adequately
champion his case.
And he wrote a letter to his adoptive mother:
"I have not decided what discipline I will give you, but it will be
severe," he said in the missive. " ... Wherever you go, I'll find you. I
pray you go straight to hell when you die because when I meet you there,
I will torture you for eternity, just as I am condemned forever."
HoustonChronicle.com - Martinez, fearing he'll kill again, is ready to die HoustonChronicle.com -- www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section:
Front page
June 4, 2005, 1:45AM
Killer's 1-word creed: violence
Fearing he'll kill again, dreading a prison life, Alex Martinez is
ready to be executed
By ALLAN TURNER
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
LIVINGSTON - The blue prison tattoos on Alex Martinez's arms and torso,
as intense in imagery as anything on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,
tell the story of his life. Somewhere, surely, are references to his
wretched childhood, the endless beatings and psychological abuse.
But it's the tombstones, macabre tributes to the women whose throats he
slashed, that are most chilling.
"Maria," reads one, referring to Maria Martinez, the stepmother who
miraculously survived his brutal attack in August 2001. "To be continued."
The second cuts to the heart of what brought the 28-year-old one-time
Houston fast-food worker to death row. Beneath the inscription, "RIP,"
are a date, a woman's name and the sum, "$300." Seemingly cryptic, the
tattoo is a crude ink-and-skin memorial to South Houston prostitute
Helen Joyce Oliveros, who, on Aug. 12, 2001, was murdered by Martinez
during a squabble over her fee.
Martinez admitted that the slashings, just weeks after he was freed
from prison where he served a sentence for attempted murder, might seem
extreme responses to minor provocations — unless one believes in
violence.
"Yeah, I believe in violence," said Martinez, who is scheduled to be
executed Tuesday and become the ninth killer to die in the state's
Huntsville death house this year. "I was raised up with violence. I was hit,
kicked, hollered at. It destroyed my family. Even in here (prison) I'm
subject to violence. Even the state will be violent when I'm killed."
Partly out of fear that he will kill again, partly out of dread of
spending his life behind bars, Martinez said in a recent death row
interview that he wants to die. To the consternation of his appeals attorney,
Houston lawyer Pat McCann, the killer has insisted that all efforts to
save his life be halted.
"I think Alexander's life still has value," he said. "I wish he would
change his mind."
McCann thinks a key element of the prosecution's case — testimony by
his client's Harris County cellmate, Cesar Rios — is faulty.
"This is a case that never should have been a capital case to start
with," McCann said. "A lying jailhouse snitch was one of the key elements
in making a murder case a capital case. ... If Alexander dies, he'd be
dying for a lie. That's not justice."
In rejecting Martinez's initial, automatic appeal in March 2004,
however, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found that other evidence was
"consistent with and corroborated" Rios' testimony. Evidence also
supported the accuracy of three confessions Martinez gave investigators after
his arrest.
"He's one of the scariest people I've encountered across the table,"
said Assistant District Attorney Tammy Thomas, lead Harris County
prosecutor in the case. "He seems to enjoy the kill. That's pretty apparent
from the trial transcript. He's not sorry."
"He is among the most dangerous individuals this forensic psychiatrist
has evaluated," Dr. Seth Silverman wrote after examining Martinez to
determine his competency to waive appeals.
"He has taken pride in his short temper and proclivity to extreme
violence. The violence has escalated through his life, including during his
incarceration. ... Mr. Martinez's decision to refuse his death penalty
appeal is a logical extension of his lifelong disrespect of his own, as
well as others' physical well-being."
Martinez, in the death row interview, affirmed that he likely would
kill again.
"Maybe not now," he said, "maybe not in 10 years. But someday, maybe 20
years from now, somebody would set me off. I give my life freely."
Psychologist Carmen Petzold found that Martinez suffered from "numerous
disorders," possibly stemming from his hellish childhood. Born to a
heroin addict, Martinez was placed for adoption with a family in which he
was verbally, physically and, he claimed, sexually abused by his new
mother. Martinez told officials he was "beaten every night until my
mother's hands hurt and she had to stop."
'His life just fell apart'
Martinez's adoptive mother, Velma Griffin, who raised the child from 15
months to nine years, when her marriage ended in divorce, denied all
the abuse allegations. Today, she prays for him and hopes his life will
be spared. She routinely attempts to visit him on death row, though on
each occasion he has rebuffed her, silently returning to his cell when
he determines the identity of his visitor.
"I feel very sad," she said. "I cry all the way home. I have to sit in
the car five to 10 minutes to compose myself. I just wanted him to know
that somebody loves him."
Griffin said Martinez's early years showed promise — as a Boy Scout he
was selected to address the Texas Senate. But after the divorce, when
she gave up custody of her four children to her ex-husband, "his life
just fell apart."
Martinez said the situation hardly improved when his adoptive father
remarried. His stepmother, he asserted, intensely disliked him and worked
to alienate his father.
"She wouldn't do anything," he said. "She'd wait until my dad came
home, and he'd hit me hard."
Martinez's father, stepmother and siblings could not be located for
comment.
By the time Martinez dropped out of the ninth grade, he was a steady
inhaler of spray paint fumes and similar substances. His adolescence and
young adulthood were marked by continual violent skirmishes — only
during three years was he free of the criminal-justice system, records
show.
"I always looked at it like everybody owed me something," Martinez
said. "My mentality was not giving a damn. I couldn't see myself in the
world for some reason. I was mad all the time. ... I always thought that I
could go right someday. I always thought that things would work out for
the best. And all the time I was getting further in the hole."
Deadly trail
In 1994, he stabbed a co-worker during an altercation at the pizza
restaurant at which they worked, resulting in a seven-year sentence for
attempted murder. He had been out of prison three weeks when he murdered
Oliveros, a 45-year-old prostitute with a history of narcotics offenses.
Martinez said he contacted the escort service for which Oliveros
worked. When Oliveros arrived at Martinez's home — he was staying at
Griffin's residence — the two quarreled over the woman's $300 fee.
In three statements to police, Martinez acknowledged that he had sex
with the woman, then killed her. In one, he admitted that he had taken
money and cocaine from her belongings. Martinez's county cellmate, Rios,
who received a reduced sentence for his testimony, told jurors the
killer told him he had placed a knife to the woman's throat as she gathered
her things to leave, engaged in sex, forced the knife into her throat,
then, to silence her, slashed her throat.
He then placed the corpse in a bedroom closet, retrieving it three days
later to dump it in a nearby vacant lot.
Prosecutors told jurors that to find Martinez guilty of capital murder
they could accept that he had robbed and/or sexually assaulted his
victim. It was not necessary that jurors agree on which felony he
committed. The court of criminal appeals upheld prosecutors' interpretation of
the law.
In his death row interview, Martinez said he took money and drugs in
the incident, but the theft was an afterthought, not a motivating factor.
He indicated the couple had engaged in consensual sex.
Residents of a well-kept South Houston neighborhood, where Oliveros
apparently lived with her parents, now deceased, would not comment on the
victim's descent into drug abuse and prostitution.
'Condemned forever'
On Aug. 23, 2001, Martinez slashed his stepmother's throat in an
unprovoked attack as his 8-year-old half-brother and 12-year-old half-sister
watched. The injured woman survived after spending nine days in the
hospital, five of them in intensive care. Martinez was arrested later the
same day after he confided his crimes to a relative in La Porte, who
notified police.
When police searched Martinez's bedroom the next day, they found blood
on the bed frame, wall, floor, closet shelves and door. Some of the
blood, said Assistant District Attorney Marie Munier, was from Oliveros,
some from Martinez. Because of irregularities the Houston Police
Department's crime lab, the blood samples were tested a second time with the
same results, she said.
Behind bars, Martinez seethed.
He demanded to be housed "with my people," members of the violent
Mexican Mafia prison gang.
He denounced those who might have been sympathetic to him, notably the
Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, for failing to adequately
champion his case.
And he wrote a letter to his adoptive mother:
"I have not decided what discipline I will give you, but it will be
severe," he said in the missive. " ... Wherever you go, I'll find you. I
pray you go straight to hell when you die because when I meet you there,
I will torture you for eternity, just as I am condemned forever."
