Suspect in 2006 Ocala Murder Says He’s Killed 30 Across U.S.

The Marion County Sheriff’s Office says they’ve solved a double homicide case from 2006–and the suspect may be responsible for some 30 murders across the country.

A major break in the case came on Feb. 27 when lab results from a cigarette butt recovered inside the victims’ truck revealed a DNA profile of Jose Martinez.

Deputies said Martinez shot Javier Huerta and Gustavo Olivares-Rivas on Highway 19 just north of State Road 40 in the Ocala National Forest back in Nov. 8, 2006.

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At the time, Marion County deputies didn’t know what the Volusia Construction workers were doing there, or why they were killed. As years passed, the case was turned over to cold case investigators.

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Detectives noticed a cigarette butt in a soda can that had never been processed. On a hunch they sent it to FDLE and it came back with 50 year-old Jose Manuel Martinez’s DNA.

When they went looking for him, they realized he was already wanted for a murder in Alabama. He was captured crossing the Mexican border in Arizona last month, and Marion County Detectives went to talk him. {snip}

“From his statements, he’s killed over 30 people throughout the United States so this is what he does, he’s an individual who goes around and collects debts for the cartels and kills people,” said Det. TJ Watts with the sheriff’s office.

They say Martinez confessed to luring Huerta and his co-worker to a Volusia County construction site, because Huerta had stolen 10 kilos of cocaine worth $210,000. Martinez told deputies Huerta paid him the money, but it wasn’t enough.

“He didn’t want people to identify him at a later date, that’s why he killed them,” Watts said. “Normally when he goes and collects debts he kills people.”

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Investigators say Martinez wouldn’t say who he was working for in the Mexican drug cartel for fear of safety for his family.

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Jose Martinez