David Martinez was executed by the State of Texas for the murders of a mother and her son
According to court documents David Martinez would murder his girlfriend Carolina Prado and her fourteen year old son Erik Prado with a baseball bat
David Martinez was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
David Martinez was executed by lethal injection on February 4 2009
David Martinez Photos
David Martinez FAQ
When Was David Martinez Executed
David Martinez was executed on February 4 2009
David Martinez Case
Nearly 15 years since he took a baseball bat and fatally bashed his girlfriend and her teenage son at their San Antonio home, condemned killer David Martinez got his wish and was put to death for their slayings. The 36-year-old parolee, who on Wednesday night became the sixth Texas inmate executed already this year, had won permission from the courts to stop appeals to spare his life.
“Nothing I can say can change the past,” Martinez said from the death chamber gurney. “Asking for forgiveness or saying I’m sorry is not going to change anything.” He told witnesses, including relatives of his victims and his own friends and relatives, that he hoped they could find peace and was “sorry for putting you through this.” Then as the drugs began taking effect, he added: “I’m sorry. I truly am.” Eight minutes later, he was pronounced dead.
Martinez was on parole after serving five months of a five-year sentence for attempted sexual assault when he was arrested for the slayings of Carolina Prado, 37, and her son, Erik, 14. At the time of his arrest at his grandmother’s home in San Marcos, where he fled after the killings, he’d also been sought for nine months for refusing to report to his parole officer.
Prado’s daughter, Belinda, who was 10 at the time of the slayings, testified against Martinez, telling a Bexar County jury in 1995 she was awakened by the sound of the bat and saw him beat her brother’s head. Martinez ordered her to be quiet or she would meet the same fate, then tied her up. After he left, the girl freed herself and walked to her grandmother’s house nearby. Rosa Ramirez found her grandson’s body then called San Antonio police, who found Prado’s body.
Belinda Prado was among the people watching Martinez die. She was held by an uncle during the 11 minutes they spent in the death chamber witness area, then was placed in a wheelchair as she departed. She declined to speak with reporters after the punishment.
Martinez told officers who arrested him that he killed the pair “just like cockroaches.” In a statement to police, he said the slayings occurred after he drank a 12-pack of beer and a large bottle of rum. He later testified at his trial, however, that police coerced him into making a confession and denied any role in their deaths.
Interviewed recently on death row by The Associated Press, he wouldn’t discuss the crime. “I’m not insensitive to the victims’ family, to my family, but nobody wins,” he said. “There are some things not meant to be learned. I don’t mean to be evasive, but what they have to realize is that publicity is not going to get more out me than that. I’m sorry people are dead, of course.”
He also insisted he wanted no appeals to the courts and no clemency efforts. “Why prolong the process?” he said.
Martinez was known as “Snoopy” and “Bam Bam.” He had a lengthy juvenile criminal history in the Rio Grande Valley that began at age 13 when authorities said he broke into a neighbor’s house and stole her panties. When he was 16 in 1988, he received juvenile probation for six burglaries and eventually was placed with the Texas Youth Commission. Three years later, he pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault for an attack on a McAllen shoe store manager. He received a probated sentence, then went to prison for probation violations. He was released on parole and was sought as a parole violator when he was arrested for the double slaying in San Antonio.
“I’ll never forget that guy,” A.J. Dimaline, who spent nearly eight years as a Bexar County assistant district attorney, said. “He was the baddest person I ever prosecuted. He claimed he was intoxicated, that the lady befriended him but got tired of him and was ready to kick him out. “We had all kinds of evidence. He even made a confession that came into evidence. We found a bat, matched the serology. We had him dead to rights. It was an easy decision for the jury.”
Two more executions are set for next week in Texas. Dale Scheanette, 35, is set to die Tuesday for the Christmas Eve 1996 rape-slaying of Wendie Prescott, 22, a teacher’s aide, at her apartment in Arlington. Two days later, Johnny Ray Johnson, 51, faces lethal injection for the 1995 rape-slaying of a Houston woman, Leah Joette Beane, 41.