Survivors describe grief at hearing for Modesto ‘monster’ Martin Martinez, who killed 6

“Today we can find some calm in the chaos that has become our lives. Today we will celebrate four walls and a cell and take solace in knowing that this monster will sit behind bars until the day he so deservingly dies.”

Lauren Spenker-Ripley, the half sister of two of four young children killed by Martin Martinez, said this to him in court on Thursday. She was one of five family members of the six people Martinez killed who spoke during his final hearing before he is sent to prison for the rest of his life.

They spoke of the sorrow, the anger and the trauma that they endured at his hands and the irreversibly changed lives they now lead.

“It has shaped my world, it has stolen my happiness, and it has seeped into my heart,” Spenker-Ripley said.

Last month, Martin Martinez pleaded guilty to five counts of murder for the July 18, 2015, deaths of his girlfriend, Dr. Amanda Crews; her two daughters, Rachel Martinez and Elizabeth Ripley; his mother, Anna Brown Romero; and his niece, Esmeralda Navarro, inside an east Modesto home.

Prior to the plea, the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office was pursuing the death penalty.

Martinez also pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the death of Crews’ 2-year-old son, Christopher Ripley, who suffered a brain injury while in Martinez’ care in October 2014.

He was sentenced to five life sentences without the possibility of parole for the 2015 murders and 11 years for Christopher’s death.

Sister of Dr. Amanda Crews speaks

Spenker-Ripley, half-sister to Elizabeth and Christopher and “honorary big sister” to Rachel, was the one to discover the horrific scene at the home on Nob Hill Court.

She went there to check on them and found the house locked, the curtains drawn.

She had to crawl through a window, one of the windows she used to joke with Amanda Crews were so low that Elizabeth would sneak out of them some day as a teenager.

When she got inside, Spenker-Ripley said, “I saw Amanda first, dead. I unbolted the front door and I went searching for Elizabeth because all I wanted to do was protect her. I opened the bedroom door and I didn’t step inside because I couldn’t, because I saw her covered with a trash bag ... The pain of that day is undefinable. A piece of me died as I stumbled down those stairs.”

Chief Deputy District Attorney Annette Rees said Martinez had entered Crews’ home through the garage door and stabbed his mother, Anna Romero, to death in the laundry room. He then went upstairs to the master bedroom, where he found 6-year-old Elizabeth and 5-year-old Esmeralda and suffocated them using plastic bags. Martinez then suffocated 6-month-old Rachel, his daughter, in her crib inside a downstairs bedroom.

Martinez waited for Amanda, a well-respected Modesto doctor, to return home from a health conference and stabbed her to death when she walked through the front door.

Martinez then drove to San Jose, where he attended a family barbecue and saw a movie with this dad before being arrested.

“What you did after you slaughtered parts of three generations is not something done by anyone who would feel any guilt or remorse,” Judge Ricardo Córdova said in his address to Martinez. “I have no doubt a jury would have sentenced you to death in this matter. You were wise to plea to five sentences of life without parole. You saved your life, something the victims did not have the opportunity to do.”

Kimberley Crews describes reaction to plea

Amanda Crews’ twin sister, Kimberley Crews, said in the wake of the murders that she wanted Martinez put to death, but she and the other family members agreed to the plea last month.

“It released the defendant’s hold on me,” she said in court Thursday. “I get to move on in a real and meaningful way. I get to have a chance to forget what Martinez looks like. I want Martinez to remain in prison for the rest of his life. I want him to feel the kind of fear Elizabeth felt when she was hearing Anna being stabbed to death, the kind of fear she felt when he turned to her, when it was her turn die.”

Kimberley Crews said she couldn’t have children of her own and that her nieces and nephew were the closest she had.

“My heart aches to hold our babies,” she said. “I will never again feel the weight of their little bodies in my arms as they drift off to sleep, knowing that they are safe and loved. Never again will I get to swing them with Mandy playing one, two, threes while walking the neighborhood. Never again will I hear their small perfect little voices call out in excitement ‘Auntie’s here.’”

Both Kimberley Crews and Spenker-Ripley said they have been diagnosed with PTSD.

Spenker-Ripley said she cannot be in houses with stairs or in rooms with closed doors or curtains. She can tolerate neither silence nor loud noises, nor darkness.

Kimberely Crews said that for years after the murders, she avoided children because she would see the dead faces of her nieces and nephew in theirs.

“When I would hear children screaming while playing, I would wonder, ‘Are they being murdered?’” she said. “Then I wonder if Elizabeth screamed when he came for her. The fear she must have felt must have been paralyzing. To think of the last moments of life being sheer terror is maybe the saddest thing I have ever contemplated.”

“I no longer feel safe in this town,” she said. “I avoid entire parts of Modesto, often going out of the way to avoid a neighborhood that holds memories for me. This town feels haunted to me.”

Martinez’ sister, aunt and second cousin also spoke during the hearing.

Martin Martinez called a coward

His aunt, Charlotte Brown Nevarez, called him a coward and an idiot. She said he should have taken his own life.

“I hope you live to be 100 and every time you awake, you wake up in fear for your life, and every time you lay your head on your pillow, you hear that last breath from your mom and your baby girl, and every time you close your eyes, you see that last look on their faces,” she said.

His sister, Michelle Brown, lamented that their mother never had the opportunity to meet the baby she just adopted. She said she will always wonder if there is something they could have done to prevent this tragedy.

Not once did Martinez turn and look at the people who were speaking, not even when they looked directly at him. He was the only one in the courtroom, including the judge and court staff, who did not show emotion. He declined the opportunity to speak when it was offered to him. And his gaze remained fixed straight ahead until a short video of the children he killed was played. He watched that.

It showed Rachel giggling as she is bounced on someone’s knee, Christopher singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” and Elizabeth talking to and trying to coax a smile out of Rachel.

“I think she is saying, ‘I love you’ to me,” Rachel says.

“I think you’re right,” Amanda Crews responds.

This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 2:02 PM.