Murphy gets 40 years

Pauline Mitchell, Mother of Slain Cortez Boy Describes her Anguish at Sentencing Below this Article.

June 4, 2002

By Jim Greenhill
Herald Staff Writer

CORTEZ – When Shaun Murphy finally cried Monday, the tears flowed as he walked from court, about to start a 40-year prison sentence for the murder of Fred C. Martinez Jr.

He did not cry when his grandmother apparently suffered a heart attack shortly after pleading for mercy for her 19-year-old grandson. Her collapse at 2:55 p.m. delayed her grandson’s sentencing hearing 25 minutes while the courtroom was cleared and paramedics stabilized her. She was taken to Southwest Memorial Hospital and later discharged, the hospital reported.

But the medical emergency was not the day’s highest drama.

That was surely when Martinez’s mother, Pauline Mitchell, read a 3½-page speech that she had been working on since her 16-year-old son’s beaten body was found June 21, 2001, in an area locals call the Pits, near a trailer park south of Cortez.

Many of Murphy’s extended family wept as Mitchell described her sixth son’s life and death – but Murphy did not.

He sat at the defense table before 22nd Judicial District Court Judge Sharon Hansen in the Montezuma County Courthouse in an untucked, oversized gray shirt, black pants and black boots. His legs were manacled, but his hands were free. His hair was close-cropped, except for a small ponytail he occasionally reached for and groomed.

It took 10 minutes for Murphy’s extended family and Martinez’s relatives and friends to get into court, filing through a metal detector before deputies searched pockets and bags. Murphy turned to see who had come. He waved to people, cocked his eyebrows, smiled.

He was, court testimony would show, a sixth-grade dropout, a gangbanger in the East Side Locos Trece who had the gang symbol "13" on his jail-cell mirror. In the months leading up to Monday’s hearing, he had attempted to escape from jail, threatened guards and fought with other inmates.

He was, testimony showed, a boy taught by his mother to hate his absent father, a parolee who tampered with a urine sample, a small-time drug dealer, a boy repeatedly charged with assault who had beaten his own step-brother to unconsciousness.

He had served time at a secure youth facility. Charges he faced as a child included assaulting a police officer, slamming a man’s head into a wall and hitting a drunken man with a beer bottle.

He was a boy with a self-professed anger problem.Reconstructing a crime

According to Montezuma County Sheriff’s Detective Steve Harmon, Murphy and Clinton Sanchez, who called each other "Cuz," drove from Farmington to Cortez to sell methamphetamine at the Ute Mountain Roundup Rodeo carnival.

The pair got to the carnival late and abandoned it in favor of a party, where they saw Fred Martinez.

No one saw Murphy and Sanchez talk with Martinez, but the three shook hands when Murphy and Sanchez left between 2 and 3 a.m. June 17.

Later that morning, as Murphy drove Sanchez to the Handy Mart at 806½ South Broadway in Cortez to get pizza, they saw Martinez walking on the street and picked him up. While Sanchez was in the convenience store, he said he saw Murphy and Martinez talking. That conversation stopped when Sanchez returned to the car, Harmon said.

The three left the Handy Mart, and Sanchez and Murphy drove to a friend’s apartment, stopping to drop Martinez off within easy walking distance, Harmon said.

Once at the apartment, Murphy stayed only a short time, then said he wanted to go out and find a marijuana joint. Sanchez offered to go with him. Murphy declined, which was unusual, Harmon said.

Only Murphy and Martinez know what happened next. Murphy would give investigators three different stories. At first he told them – as he had boasted to friends – that two people jumped him.

"They were beating him up, and he grabbed a rock and hit one of them on the head," Harmon said.

By his third version, Murphy conceded there was only one person: Martinez. "They ... were going to walk down into the Pits to smoke a bowl of marijuana," Harmon said.

"Mr. Murphy and (Martinez) obviously made an agreement to meet," said Joe Olt, district attorney.

But, Murphy told investigators, Martinez hit him in the throat and he fought back with a rock.

That wasn’t what Murphy boasted to friends, though, Harmon said.

"I bug-smashed a hoto," Murphy bragged. Hoto is slang for a homosexual.

Finding out from television news that Martinez was dead, Murphy told Sanchez, "I killed that fool, huh?"

One friend told investigators that upon returning to the apartment, Murphy was covered with "more blood than she’s ever seen," Harmon said.

After the murder, Murphy washed himself and caught a ride to Aztec with friends, throwing his bloody socks out the window, one of which was later recovered by investigators.40 years in prison

Martinez’s decomposed body was found four days later. At the scene, deputies found blood-stained rocks. They produced crime scene and autopsy photographs, at which time several of Murphy’s supporters left the courtroom.

Martinez had died from a blunt force head injury and an incised wound to his abdomen, a forensic pathologist had found.

A Crimestoppers tip led investigators to Murphy, and they watched Sanchez throw a plastic bag in a Dumpster. The bag contained clothes with blood later matched to Martinez. Sanchez was arrested on unrelated charges. He fingered Murphy.

Murphy’s supporters gasped as a video was shown of Murphy posturing with two long guns and a handgun. "This is my little collection," he said. He thrust the handgun down the front of his pants. "This is where I keep it, everywhere I go."

After Mitchell’s statement and ones from Murphy’s relatives and Murphy himself, Hansen sentenced Murphy to 40 years in prison.

"Did she say 40 years?" Angel Murphy Tacoronte, the defendant’s mother, said aloud. "Oh my God!"

It was then that Murphy shed tears – tears apparently reserved for himself.

Reach Staff Writer Jim Greenhill at jim@durangoherald.com

 

Murphy sentenced to 40 years 

June 4, 2002

By Katharhynn Heidelberg
Journal Staff Writer

Despite a promise to make an effort to change his life for the betterment of his family, Shaun Murphy was sentenced Monday to 40 years in prison in the beating death of Fred C. Martinez Jr.

"I don’t ask you for absolution," Murphy told Judge Sharon Hansen at the conclusion of a hearing in district court. "That is why I’ve made my plea, because I know my actions have caused a life to be taken in an unfortunate tragedy." He maintained that the beating had been in self-defense, saying that "the onset of anger took over," and begging Hansen to "see me as a human being who has made a terrible mistake."

Murphy had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Martinez, an openly gay or transgendered 16-year-old boy whose body was discovered south of Cortez on June 21, 2001. A Crimestoppers tip first implicated Murphy. Subsequent investigation revealed that he had apparently boasted, "I beat up a fag," to friends.

"There is no way I can ever feel better, except to have my son back," Martinez’s mother, Pauline Mitchell, told the Journal after the sentencing. "The apology that he (Murphy) said — I just feel that’s something he had to say. The crying that they’re (Murphy’s family) doing — see how I felt when that happened to my son."

During the all-day hearing, Montezuma County Sheriff’s Detective Steve Harmon, the lead investigator in the murder, reiterated previous accounts that Murphy, according to testimony from two of his friends, had been at a party the night of June 16, 2001, that was also attended by Martinez.

Later, Murphy left with one friend, Clint Sanchez, according to Harmon. The two were headed to a convenience store to buy a pizza when they picked up Martinez, who was walking on the street. After buying the pizza, they dropped him off again on the street and went to a female friend’s apartment. Murphy told Sanchez and the woman he was leaving again to "get a joint or something," Harmon said.

Harmon testified that Murphy later gave police three accounts of what had happened after that.

The first was that Murphy had been walking and was hit in the back of the head by two attackers and chased into "the Pits," an area south of town, where Martinez’s body was later found. Murphy then claimed he hit one of his attackers in the head with a rock and escaped.

By his second account, Murphy was chased into the Pits by just one person. In his third statement, he said he met one person, Martinez, near the Dumpsters at the Sleeping Ute Apartments. They agreed to go to the Pits together to smoke pot, and at that point, Martinez attacked him and Murphy fought him off with a rock.

He left not knowing whether Martinez was still alive, District Attorney Joe Olt said, and returned to the apartment.

Melissa Scharnhorst, the friend there, told investigators later that Murphy came in covered with blood and said he had "bug-smashed a ‘hoto’ (homosexual)," Harmon testified.

"At any time did anybody pick up a phone and alert the authorities that somebody might have been hurt down in the canyon?" Olt asked Harmon.

"No," Harmon replied.

It is unknown how long Martinez lived after he was struck with the rock, as exposure had made the autopsy reports inconclusive.

But public defender Pamela Brown questioned the credibility of Murphy’s friends, who, she said, made the statements because they feared being jailed as accessories. She said Sanchez, was admittedly high the night of June 16.

And, despite the fact that Murphy told three different stories about that night, one thing remained consistent: his claim that he was attacked first, she said.

"He did not try to kill Fred Martinez. What occurred was a fight in which he made a terrible choice to pick up a rock," Brown said. "There is no evidence that he set him up. Shaun didn’t have a pre-existing vendetta against gay people. There’s no evidence to support that."

Murphy’s mother, Angel Tacoronte, also insisted her son had no bias against gays. "I raised him in a gay home. Shaun respects me and all my friends and family who are gay. I may not have been a perfect mom, but I gave it my best shot. I don’t believe my child killed someone else’s child, but he will pay. I love you, son, and I will stand behind you 100 percent," Tacoronte told the court.

Murphy’s grandmother, Angie Murphy, also spoke on his behalf, citing her experience working with troubled youth. Later, she suffered an apparent cardiac episode and the court was cleared to allow an ambulance team to transport her. No information was available on her condition Monday night.

Brown asked that Murphy’s prior record as a juvenile not be given much weight. His parole officer had recommended early release from parole because she was impressed with his progress.

Olt responded by detailing a lengthy list of those offenses, which included smashing a boy bigger than himself into a wall, and bloodying the face of an older child when Murphy was in the fourth grade. He had also been arrested for beating up a cousin, and, in 1997, for first-degree assault with a deadly weapon — however, the case was dismissed.

Olt also said that in 1999, Murphy beat his brother to unconsciousness, and that his own mother had reported it.

As for his glowing parole reports, Olt pointed out that his parole officer was unaware of his violations, which included crossing state borders without permission, selling methamphetamine and possessing guns.

Mitchell told the court her son "left this world all too soon because of those who hate and fear anyone who’s different. It’s hard to have to talk about your baby this way. He was killed because he was different." Mitchell added that such labels as "transgendered," "gay" and "nadleeh" (two-spirit) were meaningless to her family.

"We loved FC exactly as he was," she said, "and it is so sad that fear and hate of difference put young people like Fred and many others into the path of danger and violence."

The toll Martinez’s death has had on her family has been tremendous, she told Hansen. "I have been sick for nearly a year over the loss of my son. I love him so much. I miss him very, very much."

She said Murphy deserved the maximum allowable by law, 48 years. "Mr. Murphy," she said, "you took my son away in the most vicious way I can imagine... and all you said about it was that you had ‘bug-smashed a fag.’ I think you should be put to death for that. I believe you should be in jail for as much of your life as the law will allow. You stole my son’s life. You broke my family. And you broke my heart."

Hansen agreed the incident was tragic. "It’s very tragic situation when we have two young people whose lives have either been ended or altered," she said.

"We’ve tried sentences to rehabilitate you," Hansen said of Murphy’s past. "Your crime is horrific. I believe you are sincere in that you didn’t want this to happen — however, you knew you had injured someone and didn’t even make a call. It might have made the difference between life and death."

Hansen then passed a sentence of 40 years, plus time served, and levied more than $300 in fines and costs. Murphy’s family broke down in sobs, and Tacoronte called out, "I love you, son" as Murphy was led away.

John Peters-Campbell, member of the 4 Corners Gay and Lesbian Alliance for Diversity also said he would have preferred the maximum. "But this was very close. My main concern was that Pauline would run into him (Murphy) on the street five to 10 years from now, and that’s not going to happen."

Mitchell also praised the members of the Native American Church for their support, as well as PFLAG and the 4 Corners GLAD. "John (Peters-Campbell) is the No. 1 person who stood by me all the way," she said.

Her hope is that hate-crime legislation will one day become a reality in Colorado.

"Please don’t forget him," Mitchell said.

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