Tech solved horror slay
DNA sample led to bust in killing of Bx. girl
Investigators used a 22-year-old semen sample and cutting-edge technology to nail a Bronx predator in the brutal cold-case killing of a 13-year-old neighbor attacked as she walked home from school, authorities said Tuesday.
The arrest of murder suspect Joseph Martinez, 49, became the first city investigation solved through familial DNA technology , with the key piece of evidence a semen stain found on the sweatshirt of victim Minerliz Soriano and preserved since 1999, according to Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark.
The sample was run through the state’s convicted offender DNA databases for male relatives — and produced a hit for Martinez’s late father. Investigators then obtained a sample from Martinez, with his DNA matching the evidence taken from the victim’s clothing, Clark revealed Tuesday.
“This beautiful little girl was treated as less than human,” said Clark after Martinez was held without bail at a brief arraignment. “It has been 22 years since her life was cruelly taken, but detectives never gave up on finding justice for her and her family — and neither did my assistant district attorneys.”
They were not alone. The investigation involved current and retired detectives intent on finding the killer more than two decades later, said NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea. “They used the science of familial DNA testing, combined with dogged investigative work, to achieve a measure of closure for all those who knew and loved Minerliz Soriano,” said Shea.
Martinez was taken into custody Monday for the gruesome slaying and entered a plea of innocent to a pair of murder charges in the Feb. 24, 1999, abduction of the child who lived upstairs in the same apartment building.
The victim’s remains were found four days later, hidden behind a Coop City video store just a mile from their Pelham Parkway apartment building.
“I can’t believe it,” said Rosa Guilbe, 47, a neighbor of both inside their Bronx building. “But I’m glad they got him. [The victim] was such a sweetheart. She used to do a lot of duties at home, shopping for the mother and stuff like that. Very respected teenager.”
She recalled how the initial investigation focused on the victim’s stepfather and a building worker, with both eventually cleared as residents became increasingly paranoid.
“It was pure daylight when all this happened,” recalled Guilbe. “We were all shaken, because we lived in such a nice neighborhood and something like this happened.”
The daughter of the accused killer, an amateur astronomer known as “Jupiter Joe,” recalled Tuesday how she was shocked one day earlier when police arrived to search her apartment around the same time they were arresting her father.
“The police came to our door and said they had a warrant,” said 21-year-old A. Martinez in an exclusive interview with the Daily News. “I thought [my father] had gotten hurt or something.”
But she soon discovered the New Rochelle, Westchester County, man was in police custody for the long-unsolved killing of their teen neighbor, who was sexually abused and strangled before she was stuffed inside a garbage bag and callously tossed into a Bronx dumpster.
Social media posts indicated Martinez was a well-liked local figure who received get well wishes after a health issue landed him in the hospital last week.
“Sending you much love and prayers sweetie,” wrote one friend.
The passionate astronomer was known for traveling around the city with a telescope offering free stargazing lessons to random passersby — including children.
He also appeared to be a doting dad to his two daughters, offering advice to the two girls when both were about the same age as his alleged victim, according to old Facebook postings.
The victim’s father said he had lost hope of an arrest over the years after Minerliz disappeared while heading home from Intermediate School 135 in Bronxdale. Once her body was found, her family was left with two decades of heartache and no answers in her death.
After the arrest, dad Luis Soriano had a message for Martinez: “I hope you go to hell.”
Martinez appeared in a beige jail uniform for his arraignment on both felony murder and intentional murder. The bespectacled suspect was ordered held without bail.
The NYPD and the DA’s office filed their joint application to use the new familial DNA system more than two years ago in April 2019, authorities said. The start of the NYPD’s use of familial DNA was challenged in 2018 by a Legal Aid Society lawsuit. But NYPD Deputy Chief Emanuel Katranakis, head of the Forensic Investigations Division, defended the tool.
“There are many, many out there that feel that this particular technique is something that the NYPD shouldn’t use,” Katranakis said. “But I say to all the families, of victims and all those out there, we should use it and we are going to use it.”