Authorities picked up Jose Martinez because they thought he had killed a man in Alabama, but while interviewing him the 52-year-old Californian reportedly confessed to killing over 30 other men.
The string of killings were part of Martinez’s alleged job as an enforcer for the Mexican drug cartels who used the US citizen to track down thugs who had done the cartel wrong in one way or another.
“I’m the guy that pays you a visit if you don’t pay,” Martinez told police according to CNN.
“Killing people doesn’t seem to affect him,” sheriff’s Capt. Tim McWhorder said.
The man killed in Alabama, Jose Ruiz, was not connected to Martinez’s job with the cartel.
Instead, according to investigators, the two men had entered “some type of business arrangement” before Ruiz insulted the girlfriend of another man, Jamie Romero.
Unfortunately for Ruiz, Romero’s girlfriend was Martinez’s daughter and after stewing on the incident for a couple of months the cartel enforcer “made up his mind he was going to kill him,” McWhorder said.
After traveling to Alabama, Martinez and Romero took Ruiz on a scenic ride to the Bankead National Forest and killed him.
An arrest warrant was eventually issued for Martinez who was later picked up in Yuma, Arizona, right over the border from Mexico, where he was apparently visiting relatives.
Once in custody, Martinez sang like a canary and now authorities are combing through their records to find murders matching the ones Martinez described.
So far they have found 13 violent deaths linked to Martinez’s admissions including a 2006 double murder in Florida.
Apparently, Martinez smoked a cigarette while going about his bloody business in 2006 and the butt was found near the victims car. Cops pulled DNA from the cigarette butt and it matched up with Martinez.