The mother of a young fashion student raped and murdered in her Astoria apartment four years ago glared at the man cops say committed the heinous crime as he was hauled into Queens Criminal Court Thursday and charged with the cold-case murder.
Jose Martinez stared straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with relatives of Carmen Saldana-Mundo as he pleaded not guilty.
“I feel a lot of anger, a lot of frustration,” said the victim’s mother, Susana Saldana, before the arraignment. “It’s something you can’t describe.”
She had a pained look on her face as Martinez, dressed all in green, with black boots and wearing a leg chain, was walked past family members in a hallway outside the courtroom.
Investigators said Martinez followed Saldana-Mundo home from a Long Island City party in July 2009, pushed his way into her Astoria apartment, sexually assaulted her, then strangled her.
“He could tell she was drunk. He offered to help. She would not let him into the apartment. He kicked his way in,” prosecutor Kristin Papadopoulos said in court.
“She hit him in the groin and tried to run. He threw her into the wall” and she passed out, the prosecutor added. “He puts his hands around her neck and choked her until she was dead.”
Susana Saldana said it didn’t matter that Martinez initially tried to help her daughter: “Does that give him the right to rape her, asphyxiate her? He is an animal.”