‘I applaud her. It’s admirable what she did.’ —Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, hailing Joselyn Martinez (above, as a child with dad José, who was a slay victim)
SOLACE: Joselyn Martinez rejoices with mom Idalia yesterday, comforted by knowing that the alleged killer of their beloved José is behind bars. (
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Police Commissioner Ray Kelly yesterday praised the woman whose tireless social-media search led to the arrest of the man who allegedly killed her father in 1986.
Justo Santos was captured by authorities in Miami and charged with the murder of José “George” Martinez after the victim’s daughter, Joselyn, found the alleged killer online and passed on the information to Manhattan cops.
“I applaud her. It’s admirable what she did,” Kelly said. “Obviously she made a concerted effort and it paid off, and we appreciate it.”
Santos fled New York for the Dominican Republic after allegedly killing Martinez in front of his horrified wife in 1986.
The two men fought for reasons that were not clear at a Dominican restaurant owned by Santos in Manhattan’s Inwood section.
Santos was busted and jailed in the Dominican two years later for an unrelated incident and the NYPD officially closed the case — something that never should have happened, Kelly said.
“[The department] should not have closed the case,” Kelly said. “[It] should have been looked at to see if there was any additional information as to why he was out of jail.”
“That’s why this case was initially closed, because he was incarcerated in the Dominican Republic,” he added. “The case was closed because detectives believed that this individual was in custody.
“In fact, he was arrested briefly but was only in jail for a little over a year and was released.”
Joselyn Martinez, 36, was 9 when her father was killed. She tracked down Martinez after scouring social media for almost a decade.
She alerted the NYPD, which worked with Miami authorities to arrest Santos at his home last Thursday.
Detectives are currently in the process of extraditing Santos to New York from Florida, Kelly said.
Kelly said this could serve as a lesson for detectives using the Internet to investigate cold cases.
“It sounds to me like common sense, they should be doing that at this time,” he said.