This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
If everything had gone as planned, Julie Ann Martinez would have received her share of an insurance payout after faking her own death and leaving Utah to begin a new life, investigators say.
Instead, less than a month after she took out a life insurance policy on herself in 2004, Martinez was fatally shot and found lying in a Kearns street. Detectives believe she was meeting that night with the man behind the phony death plot.
Yet seven years later, no murder charge has been filed and only one person has been charged in the alleged fraud scheme: Manuel Gilbert Jimenez, 37. Federal prosecutors dropped those insurance-related charges as part of a deal in which Jimenez pleaded guilty to credit-card fraud and identity theft. He was sentenced last week to serve five years in prison.
Still unresolved is who killed Julie Martinez and whether the fraud scheme led to her death.
The Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office declined to comment on the case, but court documents and testimony at hearings in the fraud case outline what investigators think happened.
Legal troubles for Martinez began in 2002, when she was placed on three years of probation for an intent to distribute a controlled substance conviction. Two years later, she was a fugitive from Adult Probation and Parole because she hadn't paid her fines and had possessed cocaine.
Investigators say Martinez, who was separated from her husband and helping raise her grandchildren, told a man she met through a mutual acquaintance that she was in dire need of money. He allegedly suggested a fake death scam and the 39-year-old Salt Lake City woman agreed to participate, according to investigators.
On Oct. 5, 2004, Martinez took out a $250,000 policy from State Farm Life Insurance Co. that named purported friend Taylor Bird the beneficiary. She made an initial $56 payment.
Sheriff's detectives and two of Martinez's three adult daughters say the plan called for her conspirator to provide a fake Mexican death certificate and help the beneficiary file a claim. They say the money was to be split three ways and the man would provide a new identity for Martinez.
After getting the policy, Martinez allegedly told her three adult daughters that she might be killed soon. Two of the daughters say Martinez planned to make a list of possible suspects and leave it among her belongings.
On Oct. 29, 2004, Martinez was frantically looking for a ride so she could meet with her co-conspirator, according to a daughter's boyfriend, who loaned her his car. Later that night, she was shot seven times in the head, face, chest and back with a 9-millimeter pistol.
Detective Chad Reyes, of the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office, testified at a March 2010 hearing that it appeared the assailant was inside the car Martinez was driving and that the first shot came from the passenger side. Martinez was shot several more times as she got out of the car and again as she was intercepted at the back of the vehicle, Reyes said.
"And lastly — I'm not sure if it was the last shot, but one of the shots was to the back of the head, execution-style," the detective said.
In interviews that night and over the following weeks, Martinez's daughters testified their mother told them in separate conversations that she was entangled in a conspiracy, according to the detectives.
At a September hearing in Jimenez's fraud case, daughters Elisa and Melissa Kelly testified their mother said a man named Manuel Jaramillo suggested Martinez get life insurance for herself and name Taylor Bird the beneficiary.
Elisa Kelly said the split was to be $100,000 for her mother, $100,000 for the Jaramillo and $50,000 for the beneficiary. Melissa Kelly identified Jimenez — who investigators allege used Manuel Jaramillo as an alias — as the man who came to her mother's home once to discuss the plan.
Both daughters testified their mother was frightened. "One time she made a comment, 'What if I end up dead?' I felt really nervous," Elisa Kelly said.
A list of suspects was never found. Detectives say they found papers listing Bird's Social Security number and date of birth among both Jimenez's and Martinez's belongings.
Court documents claim that Jimenez asked Bird in June 2005 to file a claim on the life insurance policy; she never did.
Jimenez's defense attorneys have attacked Martinez's statements about the alleged plot as unreliable. One court document says her daughter's boyfriend told investigators that Martinez was "paranoid" from her drug use.
"At the time Ms. Martinez supposedly made statements to her daughters, she was on the run from probation for drug-related charges," said a defense motion seeking to throw out the daughters' testimony. "She was also involved with the criminal underground of drug dealers and users at the time. She can hardly be said to be a person who is likely to make accurate and/or truthful statements given her lifestyle at the time."
In 2007, Jimenez was indicted on the credit card fraud and identity theft charges, as well as charges of conspiracy and wire fraud accusing him of conspiring with Martinez to fake her death. Bird, now 29, was indicted separately on charges that she used someone else's credit card to get a $5,800 cash advance and on a heroin possession count.
Reyes testified at the March 2010 hearing that Bird said Jimenez told her he had named her the beneficiary on the policy without her knowledge because he was in love with her.
"He wanted to have her collect the money so that they could split it and … they could move out of state and live together," the detective said.
Bird pleaded guilty to the drug charge and was sentenced to time served, which was about six months. Jimenez was ordered held in jail pending resolution of the fraud case.
As the case was moving through the justice system, U.S. Magistrate Samuel Alba, who was handling pretrial matters, received a letter that said: "I know for a fact that Jimenez had nothing to do with that because I was present when all people involved discussed the 'specifics' of Julie Martinez obtaining a life insurance policy in the amount of $250,000."
The author was Sandro Zevallos-Santa Cruz, now 25, who was being held on a weapons charge in the Davis County Jail, where Jimenez also was an inmate. Zevallos-Santa Cruz wrote that Jimenez was not present when the conspirators were plotting their scam.
But while giving a deposition, Zevallos-Santa Cruz recanted after a few minutes. He admitted to making up the whole story but claimed no one asked him to lie.
Despite that claim, prosecutors charged Jimenez with obstruction of justice, a count that was dropped in the plea bargain. Zevallos-Santa Cruz also was charged with obstruction of justice and sentenced to 21 months in prison.
No one has tried to collect the insurance benefits, but State Farm filed a federal suit in 2006 asking for a declaration that it does not have to pay should there be a claim. That suit was put on hold while Jimenez's criminal case was pending.
Martinez's loved ones were hit hard by her death. Elisa and Melissa Kelly described their mother as their best friend. And her youngest, Nico Kelly, said, "She'd always be there for me when she could."
Martinez's obituary described her as a woman with beautiful brown eyes, and said: "She enjoyed cooking, dancing, singing, and most of all she loved to bring a smile to the faces of the ones she loved. We love you Junebugg and will miss you very much."
More legal trouble for Manuel Jimenez
Manuel Gilbert Jimenez was charged in 2009 with criminal solicitation for allegedly offering to kill an informant in a fellow Davis County Jail inmate's case in exchange for $60,000, then threatening the inmate when he refused to go along with the plan. That case is pending in 2nd District Court.