Utah sheriff’s deputy stalked and killed by her father, prosecutors say

TOOELE, Utah (AP) — Prosecutors charged a Utah man with murder Friday, alleging he killed his adult daughter, a Salt Lake City sheriff’s deputy.

Hector Ramon Martinez-Ayala, 54, of Tooele, confessed in a text message to his brother of making “a big mistake” before fleeing the country and using his daughter’s bank card to withdraw money, prosecutors said in court documents.

The victim was Marbella Martinez, 25, said Tooele Police spokesman Colbey Bentley.

Martinez had started working as a corrections officer with the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office in January. The department had memorialized her in a Facebook post Thursday, noting her death was being investigated as “suspicious” by Tooele police.

She had lived with her father in Tooele, west of Salt Lake City, until her father’s escalating series of obsessive texting, surveillance and stalking drove her to move into a hotel for a few days, according to court documents.

The charges alleged her the stalking behavior had gone on for months, and that the “text messages from the defendant to the victim are more of the nature of a jealous lover than a father.” Martinez also found a bag of her underwear in his room, prosecutors said. Then, in mid-July he placed a tracking device on her vehicle while she was out of the country and later used it to find her and a romantic interest out by a hiking area, according to the charges.

When she returned to their house on the morning of July 31, her father strangled her, investigators said. Cameras on the property were quickly disabled or disconnected, but Martinez-Ayala left plenty of digital footprints, including location data on his phone and his daughter’s phone, as well as a text message to his brother that afternoon, according to investigators.

“My brother, you know much I love you, I made a big mistake, an unforgivable sin, now I’m too scared and I don’t know what to do. I think I will never come back,” the message said, according to the charging documents.

He flew to California, then Texas, before his cell records ceased, prosecutors said. He was then filmed passing through customs in an undisclosed country where he used his brother’s identification.

Martinez’s body was found on Aug. 1 in her bedroom after police were called to do a welfare check.

In addition to murder, Martinez-Ayala is charged with felonies related to obstruction of justice, stealing a bank card, and stalking, as well as misdemeanor identity theft.

Martinez-Ayala does not have an attorney listed in Utah online court records, and attempts to find alternative methods to contact him were unsuccessful.