Insets: Dolores Padilla-Marrero and Javier Rosado Martinez (Orange County Sheriff's Office). Background: Senior living facility on Alafaya Trail in Orlando, Fla., where Martinez murdered Padilla-Marrero (Google Maps).
A 93-year-old Florida woman who just celebrated her birthday with loved ones met her demise at the hands of her daughter's boyfriend who strangled and beat her to death in her own bed.
Javier Rosado Martinez, 58, was convicted of first-degree murder in the March 13, 2022, death of 93-year-old Dolores Padilla-Marrero. He was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
"Ms. Padilla-Marrero was a woman who opened her home to someone she trusted — and he repaid that trust with unspeakable violence," State Attorney Monique Worrell said in a statement. "This verdict is for her. It is for every family that has ever had to bury someone they loved because a predator hid behind a familiar face. This sentence ensures Javier Rosado Martinez will never again have the opportunity to harm another person."
According to Worrell, prosecutors sought the death penalty against Martinez, but jurors opted for a sentence of life in prison without parole. She also credited the victim's family for showing "extraordinary" strength during the legal process.
"This is a tragic and heinous case," Orange County Sheriff John Mina said at a press conference announcing the arrest. "And our thoughts are with her family and with her loved ones."
According to the OCSO's lead homicide detective, Padilla-Marrero was found deceased on March 14, 2022. The night before, the victim's daughter dropped her mother off around 8 p.m. at the assisted living center on Alafaya Trail. After that, the same daughter had been trying to discuss "buying dresses" with her mother via text messages, but Padilla-Marrero was uncharacteristically not responding.
The next morning, the daughter and her husband went back to the nursing home to check on Padilla-Marrero and discovered the worst.
According to an arrest affidavit, the elderly victim was found face up on her bed, naked, with a pillow over her face and a blanket covering her midsection.
The defendant killed her the night before, the sheriff said, after attempting to gain entry to the "secured senior apartment living residence" by himself — at first failing, and then having "another resident let him into the building."
"She was brutally murdered by someone she knew, someone she had gone out of her way to help," Mina said.
Orange County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Joe Covelli said that the homicide unit receiving the call that morning was unusual because deaths at such elderly facilities are usually due to natural causes.
In this case, however, responding uniformed patrol deputies "noticed some things that were very suspicious in the room," the sergeant said.
According to Covelli, an autopsy report from the medical examiner came back the next day. The cause of death in the case was a combination of strangulation and blunt force trauma to her torso, resulting in cracked ribs. The manner of Padilla-Marrero's death was homicide.
"We had processed the scene thinking this might be a homicide just in case," Covelli said. "And thank God we did. Because it turned out to be what we thought it was. And in there, we found a necklace."
The sergeant went on to explain that deputies only found part of the necklace — a small horn-like pendant without its chain — an image of which was held up at the press conference. According to the OCSO, the pendant part of the necklace was "clue number one."
The defendant "always wears that horn," Covelli said, attributing the claim to Martinez's on-again, off-again girlfriend, who is one of Padilla-Marrero's other daughters. And the horn, the sergeant said, was "wrapped in [a] shirt next to our decedent's body."
Law enforcement officials also referenced various other forms of evidence they said "solidified" the case against Martinez, but said they could not go into detail about. Some of that evidence referenced was video, DNA, and the defendant's "unique body build" because he is 5 feet, 5 inches and weighs 290 pounds and can therefore be pointed out "pretty easily."
The sergeant also alleged that when Martinez was arrested at his home on a murder warrant in Casselberry, law enforcement found "items over there that linked him to our homicide," including keys to Padilla-Marrero's apartment.
According to local ABC affiliate WFTV, Martinez and his girlfriend got into a fight the night before when she suspected him of being under the influence of drugs, she reportedly told police.
"This is a horrific crime," Covelli said. "To be 93 years old. To go your whole life and then this is how it ends. We all have parents and grandparents and this is not how they should end their life."
When taken in for questioning, Martinez said he had "blacked out" on the night in question.
Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report