An 18-year-old man was found dead, wrapped in a comforter alongside Connecticut highway last week, and his cousins have been charged in the murder.
Police said Edgar Josué Chiche Martínez’s body had been dumped along the Pope Park Highway after he was shot in an apartment elsewhere. His body had been there for about a day when it was discovered.
A 17-year-old cousin has been charged with murder and that boy’s brother, Sender Soto-Veliz, 21, has been charged with hindering prosecution ad tampering with evidence, WVIT reported.
All three — the victim and the two suspects lived at an apartment on Magnolia St. in Hartford.
According to the Hartford Courant, Soto-Veliz told police he got a call from his brother on Friday shortly after midnight. The teen asked Soto-Veliz to come home because Martinez was dead. As he arrived at the apartment building, Soto-Veliz said, the teen called him again and said he shot Martinez during a fight, an arrest affidavit says.
Soto-Veliz said his brother had already cleaned the apartment when he went inside. He admitted it was his idea to dump the body along the highway.
Police got the call about the body just before 7:30 a.m. Saturday and found it behind a rock about 10 to 15 feet off the road. Martinez, who would have turned 19 this week, was identified by his fingerprints.
Preliminary autopsy results said he died from multiple gunshots to the head.
Police were still at the scene when Martinez’s family filed a missing persons report for him when they weren’t able to reach him and he hadn’t shown up for work. The caller said officers had already been to Martinez’s apartment once, but they called again when the landlord sent them surveillance video that appeared to show two men carrying something heavy out of the apartment wrapped in a comforter.
Family members told police they had tried to reach Martinez’s cousins and that Soto-Veliz, when he answered one of many calls, told them Martinez was with his girlfriend. The boy who shot him told a family member via text message that Martinez was with a girl, the affidavit said.
Police viewed the surveillance video and saw the two men leave the area in a Honda Civic and then return, throwing something away in the apartment dumpster. They executed a search warrant on the apartment, noting that it smelling of cleaning products and that multiple fans were running with the windows open.
They also found suspected blood in several areas of the apartment and noted pillows with bullet holes on one of the beds. The pillowcases had the same pattern as the comforter found wrapped around Martinez’s body.
In the dumpster, they found a trashbag that contained a pillow with apparent blood stains and a bullet hole as well as a bag with a High Point JCP .40 caliber gun and a magazine with one round in it.
Officers also noted the Honda Civic seen in the surveillance video leaving the building and pulled it over. Soto-Veliz and his brother were inside and were taken to headquarters to be questioned.
The teen refused to speak without an attorney and was charged with murder and tampering with evidence. He is expected to be charged as an adult.
Soto-Veliz was ordered held on a $500,000 bond with his case continued until November 26.
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[Featured image: Edgar Josué Chiche Martínez/GoFundMe]
