A Time To Kill: Slaying In St. Petersburg features the case of Landy Martinez, who was murdered by his ex-boyfriend, Jose Adame.
Martinez was born in Cuba, but he moved to Miami, Florida, with his father. By the time he turned 18, he had come out to his family as gay.
Shortly after, he moved to St. Petersburg, where he enjoyed the nightlife with the LGBTQ community and worked as a certified nursing assistant during the day.
It all seemed to be going well for Martinez until tragedy struck on Dec. 21, 2011, when his roommate requested the officers do a welfare check on him.
She was on vacation and wasn’t able to reach him. When she went online to check their security cameras, it showed signs of no reception.
When she gave police officials her address, they realized it was on a street they had been surveying after a man called 911 in distress about 40 minutes earlier.
He said, “Help me, help me. They want to kill me,” before the line went dead.
Watch the Latest on our YouTube ChannelThe man called from a cellphone, so they could not track him down, but after using cellphone tower information, they concluded that the call came from one of two streets.
Landy Martinez was found dead in his St. Petersburg, FL home
Officers arrived at Martinez’s house and immediately noticed that someone had cut the security cameras. When they went inside, the house was in complete disarray.
The glass sliding door in the bathroom was broken, and police officials found tape, Drano cleaner, and a knife.
When they looked in the bedroom, they found Martinez’s body. The 21-year-old was shot in the back of the head and in the chest.
An autopsy showed that Martinez had been tortured. It was clear that he had been exposed to the chemical drain cleaner, as he had burns on his eyes and throat.
He also suffered knife wounds to his eyes.
The police conducted an investigation and learned that Martinez had been dating a man named Jonathan Galacia for about a month.
When they questioned him, he said he was at home, and that was proven to be true from his phone records.
But while they were questioning Galacia, they found out about an ex-boyfriend, Adame, of Martinez’s that he was jealous of.
The night before the murder, Martinez allowed Galacia to listen to an hour-long phone conversation between him and Adame, in which he explained that their relationship was over.
When Adame found out that Galacia was on the phone the entire time, he became angry.
Then, the next morning, Galacia received an odd text message from Martinez that said, “I’m going back to Jose, I really love Jose, it’s over between us.”
“We haven’t been together that long, I don’t want you, Jose is the person I love.”
Investigators suspected that Adame had sent the message, and they also believed he was the killer. Footage from a cell phone found at the crime scene would prove them right.
When they were able to break into the phone, they quickly realized that it belonged to Martinez, and they saw videos of what happened on the night of the murder.
Martinez was bound and tortured in the bathroom as he pleaded with Adame not to kill him. At some point, he was able to run to the bedroom and call 911 for help.
Investigators caught up with Adame in North Carolina, where they discovered that his cellphone pinged on the same tower as Martinez at the time he would have been murdered.
Adame was arrested.
Where is Jose Adame now?
On July 15, 2016, a jury deliberated for five hours before they found Adame guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
That same day, a judge sentenced Adame to life in prison without the chance of parole.
He is currently serving his sentence at Wakulla Correctional Institution in Crawfordville, Florida.
A Time To Kill: Slaying In St. Petersburg airs Friday, January 13 at 10/9c on Investigation Discovery.