Guilty: Jury convicts of first-degree murder and setting car on fire in 2022 killing

A jury on Monday found a man guilty of first-degree murder in the 2022 death of 20-year-old Yasmin Marquez.

Jurors also convicted Jonathan Martinez, 24, with one count of tampering with the victim’s body and one count of tampering with evidence by attempting to burn down the victim’s Dodge Magnum.

Martinez faced trial beginning Monday, Oct. 21 for one count of first-degree murder and two counts of tampering with evidence.

The 2nd Judicial District Court jury reached its verdicts mid-afternoon on Monday. It took the jury less than two hours to reach the verdict.

On April 15, Martinez met up with his former girlfriend, Yasmin Marquez, at a park in Southeast Albuquerque. Location data shows the pair traveling to Pajarito Mesa before the victim’s phone disconnected. Martinez then traveled to the Jemez Mountains and then Corrales, where he attempted to burn the vehicle with lighter fluid. Six weeks later, Marquez’s remains were found in the Jemez Mountains off New Mexico Highway 550.

The six-day trial presided over by Judge David Murphy included various testimonies from Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office deputies, including Colette Bridgewater, a forensic specialist for the county. Bridgewater was in charge of going through various phone records and location data to give law enforcement more information about where the victim and the defendant were during the crime.

The trial concentrated around data pulled from search warrants from several digital devices, including those of the defendant and the victim. The prosecution used text messages threads between the two to establish an intent to kill prior to Marquez’s death, with one text message, “Imma get killed bro,” sent between the victim and best friend Ketzia Loya being the center of attention for the prosecution. Other text threads were used during trial to show the state of the defendant and victim’s relationship, with prosecutors stating the relationship was abusive.

Martinez’s attorney, Stephanie Gulley, claimed that the text messages were not verified to come from Martinez because they were pulled from Facebook Messenger and the app can have multiple people logged in with various devices at the same time.

On Friday afternoon, prosecutor David Waymire cross-examined the defendant, asking him on numerous occasions to clarify the meaning of texts including abbreviations like “WYA” (where you at?). Martinez asserted that he did not recall sending many of the texts and that during the time of the murder when his location data pointed to him being in the Pajarito Mesa where the crime occurred, Martinez did not have his phone.

During Martinez’s testimony on Friday, he claimed that while he was with Marquez the night of her disappearance, he had Marquez drop him off at a friend’s house after overhearing a suspicious conversation where she discusses a money exchange with unspecified people. During his testimony, Waymire and Martinez had a verbal altercation, where Martinez questioned the prosecution on their knowledge of social media, stating, “Your expert said multiple people can be logged in on multiple devices”.

Jurors agreed with the prosecution that although they could not prove the cause of death or the exact time Marquez was murdered, Martinez acted deliberately and displayed an intent to kill.

Martinez is facing life in prison. The first-degree murder conviction requires Martinez to serve a minimum of 30 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.

Sentencing will take place at a later date.