{"id":62009,"date":"2018-08-16T17:00:34","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T23:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/jurors-hear-911-tape-in-trial-for-man-suspected-of-killing-his-wife\/"},"modified":"2018-08-16T23:00:34","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T23:00:34","slug":"jurors-hear-911-tape-in-trial-for-man-suspected-of-killing-his-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/jurors-hear-911-tape-in-trial-for-man-suspected-of-killing-his-wife\/","title":{"rendered":"Jurors hear 911 tape in trial for man suspected of killing his wife"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Martinez-Perez\"
Martinez-Perez<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Prosecutors and defense attorneys spent time this week arguing whether Silvino Martinez-Perez should be charged with first-degree murder or manslaughter.<\/p>\n

Martinez-Perez, 36, is suspected of killing his wife in April 2017 after a heated argument. He is being charged with one count of first-degree murder, one count of abuse of a corpse and three counts of child abuse. The trial, which began Monday, is expected to last two weeks.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Sean Murray said Martinez-Perez murdered his wife, Crystal Martinez-Perez, 33, on April 16 after a weeklong fight that started when she told him she wanted a divorce. Martinez-Perez admitted to the killing, saying he strangled her for more than 50 seconds in a 911 call with dispatchers, Murray said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe admitted it,\u201d Murray told the jury. \u201cHe told 911 that they had been fighting for a week and that he strangled her twice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray then played the 911 call, which was made at 12:01 a.m. April 17.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just killed my wife,\u201d Martinez-Perez is heard telling a dispatcher. \u201c\u2026 I grabbed her by the neck and suffocated her or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

After telling Martinez-Perez that she wanted a divorce, Crystal hid her text messages from him whenever he was around, Murray said. On April 16, while she was sleeping with her three kids, all younger than 10, Martinez-Perez went through her phone and discovered text messages to another man saying she was single and could do \u201cwhatever she wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martinez-Perez woke up his wife to confront her about the text messages. The two had a long fight in the kitchen, which included two cigarette breaks, Murray said.<\/p>\n

At some point during the fight, Crystal told Martinez-Perez her body wasn\u2019t his anymore, which caused Martinez-Perez to strangle her, Murray said.<\/p>\n

After her death, Murray said Martinez-Perez admitted to having sexual intercourse with his wife\u2019s body and then put her clothes back on before he called police. He then wrote a note to his three children, telling them he was sorry and encouraged them to stay in school and get a good career. He then called law enforcement and waited for deputies to arrive.<\/p>\n

Martinez-Perez\u2019s public defender, Jonathan Jourdane, said Martinez-Perez\u2019s actions immediately after the crime are consistent with an individual who acted hastily and under extreme emotional distress. He said the first-degree murder charge requires a \u201cconscious objective to kill\u201d and that Martinez-Perez should instead be charged with manslaughter.<\/p>\n

Jourdane said Martinez-Perez was under intense emotional distress during the weeklong fight as a result of his wife\u2019s decision to leave him, the discovery of his wife\u2019s text messages with another man and his current financial situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was losing all the things that he cared for in this world,\u201d Jourdane said. \u201cHe did this in a heat of passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the week leading up to the killing, Martinez-Perez was suicidal, Jourdane said. School administrators believed he was suicidal \u2013 Crystal received pamphlets from Axis Health System and Safe2Tell about suicide, he said.<\/p>\n

Jourdane played an interview with investigators, where Martinez-Perez was asked if he intended to kill Crystal. He answered, \u201cI knew what I was doing, but I couldn\u2019t stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defense lawyer said before calling 911, Martinez-Perez wrote a note to his children. Once the authorities arrived, he cooperated fully with authorities, even offering incriminating information on himself, Jourdane said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are all signs of a man who acted emotionally and on impulse,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

An autopsy performed on Crystal showed no signs of violent injury, he said.<\/p>\n

The trial is being overseen by 6th Judicial District Judge Suzanne Carlson.<\/p>\n

asemadeni@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Defense lawyer says Silvino Martinez-Perez didn\u2019t commit first-degree murder<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[133,168,28,131,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-62009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-headlines","tag-homicide","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62009"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=62009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}