“He threw her in the garbage, in the dumpster like she was garbage.”
Familial DNA testing has led to a man’s arrest in connection with the 1999 murder of a schoolgirl in New York City.
On Tuesday, NYPD arrested and charged 49-year-old Joseph Martinez with two counts of second-degree murder for the death of 13-year-old Minerliz Soriano.
Soriano was last seen leaving school on February 25, 1999. Three days later, she was found dead in a dumpster behind a video store in the Bronx.
Authorities say she had been strangled and sexually abused before her body was wrapped in a bin bag and dumped.
22 years later, her family might finally find some answers as to what happened to her thanks to familial DNA testing.
The process involves searching offender DNA databanks for a father, son or brother of an unknown perpetrator’s DNA sample.
Investigators submitted an application for a familial search in relation to Soriano’s death in April 2019.
“A DNA sample, which was obtained from a semen stain on the victim’s sweatshirt, was submitted to the New York State convicted offender DNA database for male relatives that matched the specimen, which led to Martinez’s father, who is deceased,” a press release states.
“Investigators then obtained a DNA sample from the defendant, which matched the DNA found on the victim’s sweatshirt.”
The same technology was used in 2010 to catch the ‘Grim Sleeper’ serial killer, Lonnie Franklin Jr., in South Los Angeles after his son was arrested for carrying a weapon.
Authorities say this is the first time the technology was used to solve a crime in NYC.
“This beautiful little girl was treated as less than human,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark said Tuesday. “It has been 22 years since her life was cruelly taken, but detectives never gave up on finding justice for her and her family, and neither did my ADAs.”
The girl’s family still very much have questions surrounding her murder.
Her father, Luis Soriano, told CBS2: “I feel happy because justice is working, but I feel sad at the same time because it takes too long.”
“I’d like to say to him, ‘Why?'” added her aunt, Amelia Soriano. “He threw her in the garbage, in the dumpster like she was garbage. She wasn’t garbage. She was a human being.”
The accused, who goes by the name ‘Jupiter Joe’ as he offered astronomy lessons to passersby on the street, is denying all allegations.
ABC7 reports that his lawyer, Troy Smith, said he had nothing to do with Soriano’s murder.
