Deported four times, ‘born criminal’ now charged with killing his estranged wife | Angelica Martinez

https://www.valleycentral.com/news/l...stranged-wife/

Summary:
February 18, 2016

The sirens, the crime-scene tape, the tears and agony belonged on the television screen in Martha Martinez’s living room.

Some of her favorite evenings were spent there with her sister Angelica Angie, her siblings called her — watching “The First 48,” a reality television show on which investigators scramble to solve murders within two days or risk the crimes going unsolved ...

In 2015, Angie Martinez had turned a corner at age 27. After earning her degree in criminal justice, she’d landed a steady job at the Webb County Jail. But more importantly, as far as her sisters were concerned, Angie had gained some independence and confidence. She had separated from her husband, Juan Francisco De Luna Vasquez, an undocumented immigrant from Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, this Texas town’s sister city just across the Rio Grande ...

On the evening of July 2, Martha Martinez’s phone calls to Angie’s cell phone went unanswered. An hour later, she saw flashing police lights up close.

Angelica Martinez had stopped by the central Laredo apartment she previously shared with De Luna to pick up their three children, ages nine, eight and three.

The kids were ordered outside and warned not to come back into the apartment, Martha Martinez recounted. Moments later the children said they heard their mother scream, and their father quickly packed them in his car and delivered them to a relative’s house.

Angie Martinez was found inside the apartment bludgeoned to death.