Utah Deputy Sheriff Stalked and Killed by Her Father, Prosecutors Say

TOOELE, Utah — Prosecutors charged a Utah man with murder Friday, alleging he killed his adult daughter, a Salt Lake City sheriff’s deputy.

Hector Ramon Martinez-Ayala, 54, of Tooele, admitted in a text message to his brother that he made “a big mistake” before fleeing the country and using his daughter’s credit card to withdraw money, prosecutors said in court documents.

The victim was Marbella Martinez, 25, Tooele police spokesman Colbey Bentley said.

Martinez began working as a corrections officer with the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office in January. The department paid tribute to him in a Facebook post Thursday, noting that his death was being investigated as “suspicious” by Tooele police.

She lived with her father in Tooele, west of Salt Lake City, until her father’s escalating pattern of obsessive text messages, surveillance and harassment prompted her to move into a hotel for a few days, court documents say.

The charges say the harassment went on for months and the “text messages the defendant sent to the victim were more in the nature of a jealous lover than a father.” Martinez also found a bag of her underwear in her bedroom, prosecutors said. Then, in mid-July, he placed a tracking device on her vehicle while she was out of the country and later used it to track her and one of her romantic partners near a hiking area, the charges say.

When she returned home on the morning of July 31, investigators say, her father strangled her. Surveillance cameras on the property were quickly disabled or disconnected, but Martinez-Ayala left behind extensive digital evidence, including location data on her and her daughter’s phones, as well as a text message sent to her brother that afternoon.

“My brother, you know how much I love you, I made a big mistake, an unforgivable sin, now I’m too scared and I don’t know what to do. I think I’ll never come back,” the message said, according to the charging documents.

He flew to California and then Texas before his recordings were deleted, prosecutors said. He was then filmed going through customs in an undisclosed country where he used his brother’s identity.

Martinez’s body was found Aug. 1 in his bedroom after police were called to conduct a welfare check.

In addition to murder, Martinez-Ayala is charged with felonies related to obstruction of justice, theft of a bank card and harassment, as well as misdemeanor identity theft.

Martinez-Ayala does not have an attorney listed in Utah’s online court records, and attempts to find alternative methods to contact him have been unsuccessful.