Opinion

Her father’s daughter

Apparently the folks at the National Security Agency aren’t the only ones who know how to mine data to track down the bad guys.

Just in time for Father’s Day, Joselyn Martinez helped bring to justice the man accused of murdering her father. Her dad was José “George” Martinez. On Nov. 22, 1986, he was fatally shot in front of his horrified wife after throwing Justo Santos and a group of his friends out of his Washington Heights restaurant. Joselyn was only 9 years old.

As cops were looking for him, Santos fled to the Dominican Republic, where he was eventually busted on other charges and tossed into jail. At that point, the NYPD closed the case file. When Santos was set free after just about a year in prison, the case wasn’t reopened and George Martinez’s murder was officially forgotten.

But his daughter never forgot. A decade ago, the aspiring actress began trolling the Internet and searching social media to find her dad’s killer. After years of effort — and $280 in outlays for online background checks — she hit paydirt: Santos was in Miami.

Martinez informed police. And earlier this month, she was told that Santos had been picked up, had confessed to killing her dad and was being brought back to New York to face trial.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly was full of praise for Martinez. He admitted the cops made a mistake by closing the file — and said the way Martinez used Web and social-media data was something his own detectives could learn from.

Certainly Joselyn Martinez’s refusal to give up even after the police did is testament to the power of a daughter’s love. But at a time when the NSA has come under fire for mining data to hunt down terrorists, her deft use of social media and Internet sources is a good reminder that, used properly, data mining can be a highly effective tool for ensuring that people who do us harm have no place to hide.