It's getting crowded out there.

January 6, 2009 - 9:24 AM
McClatchy News Service
RALEIGH -- Francisco Martinez's decision to drive drunk and head the wrong way on Raleigh's Inner Beltline ended up costing the lives of three fellow Mexican immigrants headed home on the same road.

On Monday, Martinez, 30, pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder and two counts of felony injury by vehicle. He could have faced 125 years in prison, if given the maximum on all charges, but Superior Court Judge Ripley Rand consolidated the sentences as part of a plea agreement.

All three who died in the May 25 wreck originally came from Mexico -- as did Martinez, who was an illegal immigrant.

Brothers Guillermo Zintzun-Jimenez, 26, and Dagoberto Zintzun-Jimenez, 21, of Raleigh, had been in the country since they were children. Guillermo Zintzun-Jimenez worked in construction, and Dagoberto Zintzun-Jimenez manned a cash register at a Sears department store for years.

The third victim, Santiago Pascual Tellez, 14, of Knightdale came to the Raleigh area a decade earlier as a 4-year-old. The popular eighth-grader planned on becoming a police officer when he was older, his family said.

Martinez chose to say nothing during the Monday afternoon hearing at the Wake County Courthouse. But he wiped tears from his face several times. He'll face deportation when his prison sentence is finished, no earlier than the latter part of 2021.

Martinez arrived in the country illegally five years ago with his wife and their two daughters, said his attorney, Charles Christopher. Since then, the couple had another child, and Martinez worked as a painter, eventually heading his own crew and frequently pulling six- to seven-day workweeks in order to keep up with the demand for his crew's services.

In advance of a rare day off, Martinez joined some friends at a gathering and began drinking the night before the wreck. He eventually left about 4 a.m. and headed home, Christopher said.

Wrong way on the Beltline

Martinez intended to get on the Outer Beltline near Rock Quarry Road. Instead, he headed up an exit ramp and drove the wrong way on the Inner Beltline, according to Christopher and Wake Assistant District Attorney Jeff Cruden.

A newspaper carrier spotted Martinez's white Chevy work van going the wrong way and called police. Seconds later, a Raleigh police officer also about to get on the Beltline saw him and followed him with emergency lights flashing in an attempt to stop Martinez, Cruden said.

Martinez continued driving the wrong way and slammed into a Lexus with the Zintzun-Jimenez brothers, Santiago and two others inside. Martinez received a broken ankle and had a blood-alcohol content of 0.17, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08 for a person to drive in North Carolina.

``He knew he shouldn't be driving, and he knew he was responsible for the tragedy he caused,'' Christopher said.

Six hours before the wreck, Martinez was pulled over by a Raleigh police officer, who determined that Martinez's license had expired a few days earlier. The officer did not detect any signs Martinez had been drinking alcohol at that time and released him, Cruden said.
Some of those in the Lexus also had been drinking.

Guillermo Zintzun-Jimenez, who was driving the Lexus, had a blood alcohol content of 0.05, underneath the legal limit, while Santiago, the 14-year-old, had enough alcohol his system to register a 0.14, Cruden said. Santiago's family said they weren't aware the teen had been drinking that night.

The deaths of Guillermo and Dagoberto Zintzun-Jimenez hit their family especially hard, marking the second time a loved one had been killed in a traffic accident. In 2005, a brother to the two men died when their car malfunctioned and Guillermo Zintzun-Jimenez stopped on the side of Interstate 540. Another vehicle slammed into them, killing 14-year-old Jose.

The driver who killed Jose Jimenez in 2005 had an initial charge of misdemeanor death by vehicle dropped to a conviction of failure to maintain lane control. That stuck in the minds of Estela and Hermaldo Zintzun-Jimenez, who came to court Monday and feared the killer of their remaining two sons wouldn't be punished.

``We blame Mr. Martinez whose fate is in your hands,'' Estela Zintzun-Jimenez wrote Rand, the judge, in a translated letter that was read in court. ``We want justice done for what was done.''

Before the hearing, the Pascual and Zintzun-Jimenez families, many members unable to understand the English-language court proceedings, met with prosecutors to discuss Martinez's plea agreement. After Martinez was sentenced, a victims' witness liaison translated what happened, including the 13-year sentence Martinez got for the deaths of three people.

``A todo? ÃFor everything?Ä,'' Estela Zintzun-Jimenez asked.

She wiped tears away from her face as she was told yes, that the prison sentence was for all three deaths.

http://www.thetimesnews.com/articles/ma ... ntzun.html