Cartel hitman convicted of killing 9 people in California gets life in prison
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}FILE - This undated booking file photo provided by the Tulare County, Calif., District Attorney shows Jose Manuel Martinez. Martinez, a self-described enforcer for a Mexican drug cartel, has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to killing nine people in California over three decades. was sentenced Monday, Nov. 2, 2015 in Tulare Superior Court in Visalia, Calif. (Tulare County District Attorney via AP, File)
A self-described enforcer for a Mexican drug cartel was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Monday after pleading guilty to killing nine people in California over three decades.
Authorities say José Manuel Martínez, 53, admitted to several other killings across the country in service of a cartel he refuses to identify.
Martínez was sentenced in Tulare Superior Court, 230 miles southeast of San Francisco. He pleaded guilty Oct. 6 to nine murder charges. In exchange, prosecutors said they wouldn't pursue the death penalty.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The 18-page plea agreement he signed said Martínez was nicknamed "El Mano Negra," which is Spanish for "The Black Hand." Court documents allege that he paid musicians to write songs about "El Mano Negra."
The plea deal shows Martínez confessing to being hired as an 18-year-old to kill a Lindsay, California, man in 1980. Martínez said he was paid to kill David Bedolla, which he did by shooting him in the head while Bedolla was driving to work 35 years ago with his wife and two other people. Martínez said he wasn't told why he was hired to kill Bedolla, 23. He went on to kill eight more people in California for a variety of reasons. He was once paid $8,000 for a hit. Another time he said he received $7,000.
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He said he also killed a small-time drug dealer who owed him $2,000, and killed a neighbor who wouldn't stop parking in his driveway.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Martínez confessed to shooting Santiago Perez, 56, in the head while he and his four young children were sleeping in their Pixley, California, home in February 2000. Several weeks later, Perez's widow and Martínez were living together. Martínez also confessed to killing the widow's brother in 1982.
"Justice was a long time coming for these many families," prosecutor David Alavezos said. "We are pleased that the families may receive some closure with today's sentencing."
Martínez's public defender, Nathan Leedy, didn't return a call.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Martínez was arrested in 2013 while crossing the border from Mexico to Arizona in connection with a slaying in Alabama. Shortly after his arrest, he confessed to killing and collecting debts across the country for an unnamed cartel.
Last year, Martínez pleaded guilty in Alabama to killing a man for making derogatory remarks about his daughter. In California, he confessed to killing people in Tulare, Kern and Santa Barbara counties between 1980 and 2011.
Authorities could not independently confirm that he was a cartel enforcer, but Martínez provided investigators with details of clothes, body positions and the caliber of weapons involved in the California killings, Tulare County Assistant Sheriff Scott Logue said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"He was spot on almost 100 percent of the time," Logue said at the Oct. 6 court hearing where Martínez pleaded guilty.
No DNA evidence was used in the investigation, he said.
Martínez also faces charges in two killings in Florida.
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