Backstretch worker dies in stabbing

ELMONT, N.Y. – A female backstretch worker was stabbed to death by a former boyfriend at a Belmont Park barn Sunday morning, police said.

Police arrested Jose Franco Martinez, 53, and charged him with second-degree murder. He will be arraigned Monday at First District Court in Hempstead, N.Y.

Franco-Martinez will be charged with murdering Maria Larin, 51, who was licensed by the New York State Gaming Commission as a stable employee. She worked as a hot walker for trainer Doodnauth Shivmangal, who is stabled in Barn 61, which also houses horses trained by Brad Cox and Michelle Nevin.

“This is not a random act, this is a targeted incident,” Det.-Lt. Stephen Fitzpatrick, the commanding officer of the Nassau County Homicide Squad, said Sunday at a news conference at Belmont Park. “The person is known to her as a former boyfriend. He’s now in custody.”

According to Lolita Shivmangal, the daughter of and assistant to her father, Larin was walking Our American Star around the barn when she was attacked around 6:30 a.m. Our American Star would finish second, beaten a neck, in Sunday’s first race at Belmont. Lolita Shivmangal is listed as the owner of Our American Star.

Michael Soto, who was walking a horse for Cox at the time of the incident, said he heard screams and then later saw Larin fall to the ground in the barn. The suspect attempted to flee but was run down across the road from the barn by a few stable hands as well as a New York Racing Association security guard, who detained him until local police arrived.

Larin was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead, according to Fitzpatrick.

Sources said that Franco Martinez came to the U.S. with Larin, but he later returned to El Salvador before coming back to the U.S. He had an expired license issued by the New York State Gaming Commission.

“He worked [at Belmont] in the past,” Fitzpatrick said. “He’s not a current employee.”

Fitzpatrick said there “will be further investigation how the suspect got onto the premises and where he came from.”

Fitzpatrick said at the press briefing that police had not yet recovered the alleged murder weapon.

Lolita Shivmangal said Larin “was a very pleasant woman who had a good heart.”