District attorney: No additional murder charges in Newman case
By Scott Jenkins

Salisbury Post

The man charged with causing a wreck that killed a pregnant Rowan County woman and her unborn child will not face a second murder charge, Rowan County District Attorney Bill Kenerly said Thursday.

After a review of medical records, the state Medical Examiner's Office in Charlotte determined that Leeanna Newman's baby did not live outside her body after the Feb. 5 wreck in Landis, Kenerly said.

"The medical information we have is that it was not a viable fetus and therefore it's not a homicide under North Carolina law, so there will not be a charge related to the unborn child," Kenerly said.

Twenty-year-old Newman, who was eight months pregnant, died shortly after the wreck at Carolinas Medical Center. Doctors there performed an emergency Caesarean section trying to save the baby.

"It was not delivered alive," Kenerly said, "and that's what the law requires."

Rigo Verto Guillen Martinez faces one count of second-degree murder in Newman's death and charges of driving while impaired and hit and run causing property damage, a misdemeanor connected to an earlier incident in Kannapolis. The charges go before a grand jury Monday.

Police said Martinez, of 108 Airport Road in Kannapolis, was driving a 1992 Jeep Cherokee north on Main Street faster than 70 mph when he tried to turn onto Highland Avenue and hit Leeanna Newman's Saturn head-on as she drove south.

Newman's 21-month-old daughter, Mallory, was buckled into a child safety seat and survived the crash with only minor injuries.

Shortly before the wreck, a Kannapolis Police officer saw Martinez driving erratically in north Kannapolis and got reports that he had hit two other cars in minor accidents, police said.

Officer David Home followed Martinez and the Kannapolis Police Department was investigating whether he engaged in a pursuit as some witnesses said. Maj. Woody Chavis could not be reached Thursday afternoon.

Martinez remained at Carolinas Medical Center until Feb. 14, when he was released from the hospital and served arrest warrants in Rowan County. He placed under a $1 million bond and taken to Central Prison in Raleigh, which has medical facilities, because both of his legs were broken.

Authorities later said Martinez had entered the country illegally from Mexico and had been arrested numerous times using at least half a dozen different names.

Kenerly said Thursday Martinez has also been served with a warrant for probation violation stemming from a Rowan County conviction of assaulting a law enforcement officer.