From prospect to suspect
Tampa Bay’s top pick in 2011 now faces murder charges
LOS ANGELES — Paul Gamache saw the first body when the police sergeant stepped into the two-story house with flowers decorating the front porch and views of the Santa Ana Mountains.
So much blood coated one man that Gamache couldn’t tell what his race was. Somehow he was still alive. To the right was the body of a man in a workman’s uniform. A clipboard with ADT security paperwork sat on the table. He was there to install a security system.
Gamache and two other Corona officers followed a trail of blood from the first man to the three-car garage. Another body.
The men had been beaten with a black baseball bat, left in a hallway near the garage. The name engraved on the wood: Brandon Martin.
Corona police had responded to the house on Winthrop Drive before the 911 call for a man not breathing on the evening of Sept. 17, 2015. Two days earlier, they were summoned after Martin, a former supplemental first-round draft pick of the Tampa Bay Rays, threatened his mother, Melody, and brother, Sean, with scissors. Sean Martin held him off with a golf club. Brandon Martin ranted that he couldn’t play baseball as long as his parents were alive.
Problems had built in the house for months. Martin, then 22, punched holes in the walls. Assaulted his father. Raced 120 mph down a freeway in his BMW M3. Mumbled words no one understood.
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He struggled with alcohol and drugs. But close friends wondered if something more was behind the erratic behavior.
Trouble emerges
Simple things — the electric way he moved around the field, uncanny bat speed, a glove that vacuumed up baseballs — awed Martin’s teammates at Corona’s Santiago High. Baseball came naturally to the broad-shouldered, muscle-bound shortstop. Speed. Power. Strength. Even an inviting smile. He had everything.
“We saw his greatness at a really young age,” said a close friend who played baseball with Brandon since age 10 and spoke on the condition he not be identified because of ongoing legal proceedings. “We all wanted to be around it. We were proud to be Brandon’s friends.”
Martin was reserved and polite. Sometimes he’d play in a high-profile tournament over the weekend and his best friends wouldn’t even know about it. Baseball America noted his “quiet personality” in a glowing scouting report. Coaches encouraged Martin to be more of a leader. But that wasn’t him.
Friends swore he would be the next Derek Jeter. The Rays gave him $860,000 to sign with them in June 2011 after drafting him 38th overall. Martin promised friends he’d take care of them and bought a black Nissan Titan for his father.
But the reality of professional baseball quickly became apparent during his first season with the rookie-level Rays team in Florida.
Tired of living with his parents, Martin rented a 6,700-square-foot mansion in Yorba Linda for $6,000 a month in late 2011.
“You can’t even fathom what that money does to an 18-year-old mind,” said Justin Hayes, a former clubhouse attendant for the Inland Empire 66ers who was one of Martin’s roommates and his closest friend.
“Things got a bit out of hand in that house,” said Matt Budgell, a former minor league pitcher for the New York Mets who lived there. “We were doing cocaine, drinking all the time . ... We tried coke for the first time together. Then it was more coke, more coke for him. I think it might’ve been a necessity thing. You keep doing it long enough and coke is not enough. You want to get higher.”
Career over
Friends noticed subtle changes in Martin the following offseason when the entourage rented a more modest home in Corona. The parties continued. But Martin was different, even after a season that led Baseball America to name him the best defensive infielder in the Rays organization.
In early 2014, Martin joined a group of friends at a timeshare in Las Vegas. He left the next day without a word and flew to Florida for the Rays’ annual winter development camp. Martin and a coach got into a heated argument after the prospect removed his cleats early. The Rays sent him home.
More than two dozen Rays teammates, managers, coaches, clubhouse staff, even the scout who signed him, either declined to comment or didn’t respond to interview requests.
Martin stopped working out, stopped throwing, stopped visiting batting cages. The Rays released him in March 2015.
A violent side
By September Martin was in trouble again. Corona Police Officer Edgardo Sandoval responded to the Martin home on Sept. 15, 2015, after Martin threatened his mother with scissors. Sandoval later described Martin’s behavior and explanations as “bizarre and inappropriate.” Sandoval took him to the Riverside County Regional Medical Center’s psychiatric facility on a mental-health hold for up to 72 hours. The officer checked a box on the detention application: “A danger to others.”
Martin’s stay lasted less than two days.
He was admitted at 8:55 p.m. on Sept. 15, then transferred to a psychiatric hospital at the next day after multiple evaluations.
On Sept. 17, Dr. Debbie Ann Imperial Rosario, the attending psychiatrist, diagnosed Martin with a mood disorder in addition to marijuana and alcohol abuse during a 75-minute meeting. She noted features of “antisocial, narcissistic and borderline personality disorders.”
The facility discharged Martin at 1:23 p.m.
According to a pending civil lawsuit in Riverside County Superior Court, Melody Martin and another family member pleaded with hospital staff not to release Brandon. The doctor said she wasn’t told the mother didn’t want her son to return. The mother had already arranged for a security system to be installed at the home.
A murder suspect
Three men waited at the Winthrop Drive house that afternoon. Michael Martin. His brother-in-law, Ricky Andersen, stopped by to protect him in case Brandon Martin returned. A local contractor, Barry Swanson, wrapped up installing the security system.
Andersen planned to give Brandon an ultimatum, court records said. Enroll in a rehabilitation program or move out within the hour. Around 6 p.m., Andersen spoke to his son, Mike, on the phone. Brandon was there and refused to leave. The line went dead. Mike Andersen called back. Nothing. He drove to the house and found the front door unlocked. He called 911 at 6:35 p.m.
Michael Martin, 64, and Swanson, 62, were pronounced dead at the scene. Ricky Andersen, 58, died two days later. They had all been struck in the head.
Their cellphones and wallets were missing. So was Swanson’s white Ford F-150 Raptor.
The next morning an officer spotted the truck. Officers tried to ram the rear quarter panel twice as the truck wound through side streets, blew through multiple stop signs and a red light. On the third try the maneuver finally disabled the truck.
Brandon Martin ditched the truck and hopped a fence.
He sprinted through backyards, broke into a home as a woman showered in the master bedroom, then he tumbled out a second-story window.
Martin, motionless on his back, didn’t respond to commands to show his right hand, so an officer released a K9 that bit Martin’s left leg. He sprung to life and repeatedly punched the dog, the handler’s report said.
Fearing Martin had a weapon in his waistband, one officer kicked him twice, then jabbed his AR-15 muzzle into Martin’s temple. At least four other officers joined in subduing Martin with baton blows, punches and kicks.
An officer found the truck key and 33 cents in Martin’s pockets.
During questioning four days later, Martin denied any involvement. After discovering the bodies, he told a detective, he didn’t call family members or police. Instead, he rummaged through the men’s pockets, grabbed their cellphones, then drove the Raptor to Carl’s Jr. to eat.
Pending trial
The Andersen, Martin and Swanson families sued Riverside County last year — the lawsuits were consolidated into one case — alleging the hospital didn’t properly treat Martin. The county denied their claims. An attorney representing the Andersen and Swanson families declined comment because the case is ongoing.
Melody Martin declined an interview request. Brandon Martin and his defense team didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Martin pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and several related charges. His attorneys recently told the court they would be ready for trial by September. Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty.
The onetime prospect now spends his days at a detention center in Riverside, as inmate No. 201537233.