3 People Arrested After 6yo Boy Kept In Closet For Stealing Food Dies

[Sugar Cookie]

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Apr 25, 2024

More than four years after his arrest for first-degree murder, child abuse, kidnapping and aggravated assault against an officer, Anthony Jose Martinez’s trial began Tuesday morning in Coconino County Superior Court.

Along with Elizabeth Archibeque, the mother of the children, and Ann Marie Martinez, the children’s grandmother, Martinez is accused of locking his two sons in a bedroom closet for 16 hours a day while limiting their food and withholding them from school. Martinez’s 6-year-old son died due to starvation on March 2, 2020, while the 7-year-old son was transferred to a children’s hospital in the Valley, where he remained for two and a half weeks for treatment.

Daniel Noble, an attorney for Coconino County described the closet the boys were confined to as measuring 21 by 25 inches, filled with boxes and piles of clothes, and including an orange plastic sheet that was wet and smelled of urine. He said the two other children in the home were allowed to sleep wherever they wanted within the room and the grandmother occupied the other bedroom of the apartment.

Martinez told police that the boys, who were given oatmeal and bread for breakfast and lunch, had stolen food at night and gotten into diet pills weeks earlier, resulting in them being placed in the closet at 8 p.m. each night and allowed out at noon. Noble’s opening statements noted that Martinez would stay up throughout the night playing video games and sitting in a chair right next to the closet to ensure the boys did not get out.

When police arrived for the call of an unresponsive 6-year-old, the boy’s jaw was clenched and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was impossible. As rigor mortis had already begun, medics at the scene determined the boy had been dead for some time. Police also spoke to the 7-year-old, who explained he was hungry, but became tired and sluggish after eating some food he was provided and needed to be transported for treatment as he started to vomit. Noble’s opening statements described this as evidence of refeeding syndrome, with the body’s chemistry shifting dramatically following a period of being malnourished.

The 7-year-old weighed just 28 pounds when police arrived -- considered the weight of a 2-year-old child -- and improved to the weight of a 4-year-old after two and a half weeks in the hospital. The 6-year-old victim weighed just 18 pounds at the time of his death, with the 4-year-old child in the home weighing 38 pounds and the 2-year-old at 24 pounds.

Citing the apartment being filled with food -- from cake and pancake mixes, cereal and cookies in the pantry to eggs, bags of smoothie blends, ice cream and frozen meat -- Noble explained how much better the treatment of the two younger children was than the older boys. This extended to their absence from school due to an alleged lack of vaccination records, a detail the prosecution planned to address during the trial.

With starvation listed as the cause of death, the 6-year-old victim was noted as having organs that were small for his age, little food in his stomach at the time of his death and being dehydrated.

To conclude his opening statement, Noble showed the jury a picture of the 6-year-old boy’s body at the time of his death and explained the evidence provided during the trial would prove Martinez’s guilt.

“After you hear all the evidence in this case, I am going to ask that you hold the defendant accountable by finding him guilty as to all counts,” Noble said.

The defense’s opening statement from attorney Taylor Fox focused on Martinez’s childhood, leading him to his relationship with Archibeque that began while he was just 15 years old and she was 18.

Fox explained that the jury would learn more about the two figures that altered the life of Martinez, who turns 28 this month, during the trial. The first, his father, left him with a tendency to withdraw from a source of terror; the second, Archibeque, took advantage of his ways of life that were learned in childhood.

“The second one came later in Anthony’s life. This second person would take full advantage of his instincts,” Fox said.

With the two eldest children born before Martinez turned 18 years old, Fox’s opening statement positioned Archibeque as the person who formed the structure of their relationship. Calling Archibeque deceptive, manipulative and cunning, Fox explained that Martinez deferred to her. He said Martinez moved to Iowa in 2014 to live with Archibeque’s relatives, but returned roughly a year later when Archibeque no longer wanted him there.

After returning to Arizona, Martinez then shifted back to Iowa when Archibeque asked him to assist with her pregnancy of another child from a different father. Ultimately, they returned to Arizona in 2019 and first lived with Martinez’s sister. Shifting to live in their van at night and with Martinez’s mother during the day, the family ended up moving into the grandmother’s apartment full time after the van broke down in the winter.

“When a person both loves and fears the most powerful person in their life -- which (Archibeque) certainly was and remained in his adult years -- what does that person do when she becomes a threat to your children?” Fox said.

Fox explained Martinez returned to the actions of his childhood by withdrawing and retreating from the situation. Describing Martinez’s time playing video games as his opportunity to feel powerful and distance himself from Archibeque’s treatment of the children, Fox said the defendant continued to hide from the realities of the situation while listening to her directions. Basing this as the evidence that he did not intentionally or knowingly starve the children, Fox said Martinez’s case is about that control from Archibeque rather than what he should have done.

Trial begins for Anthony Jose Martinez in 2020 starvation death of 6-year-old in Flagstaff

Martinez is accused of locking his two sons in a bedroom closet for 16 hours a day while limiting their food and withholding them from school.

azdailysun.com

 

[Angiebla]

I know this is from September, but I watched it twice. The police officer was way to nice to her. I wanted to kick her in the face for acting like she didnt know what happened. And blaming it on caffiene pills? The fuck outta here.