JOSE BERNARDO MARTINEZ - 'BELOVED DOE' - Aged 5 years - Houston (Texas)

Tue Feb 05, 2008 3:56 am posted by merlynsam

BELOVED DOE

The body of a young boy (named only as Beloved Doe) aged between 3 and 6 years was found in Houston, Texas on Thursday, March 13, 2003 and still needs identifying.

The FBI HOUSTON PRESS OFFICE issued a press release on February 4, 2008 asking the public to help them to identify this child.

IMPORTANT PLEASE NOTE: There are some photos at the end of the report and they are very upsetting. Please do not look if you may be offended. I do not wish to upset anyone unneccessarily, but I thought that some of our U.S members may be able to help.

Again, WARNING, the photos at the bottom of this link are upsetting.

http://houston.fbi.gov/pressrel/2008/ho02042008.htm

God Bless little one.

Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:16 am posted by merlynsam

DO NOT READ IF YOU THINK YOU MAY BE UPSET BY THE DETAILS OF THIS CHILD'S DEATH

Beloved Doe

A similar but even more disturbing case is being investigated by police in Houston, Texas. On March 13th (2003) a maintenance man working at the Willow Creek Apartments in Houston found a plaid laundry bag that had been thrown in a trash dumpster. Inside the bag was a blue and gray blanket. The blanket was wrapped around the corpse of a child.

At first, investigators believed that the victim had been a two to three year old boy. That's because the cause of death had disfigured the body. He had been starved to death.

The autopsy revealed that Beloved Doe, a name also chosen to avoid the coldness of the normal "John Doe" designation, was four to five years old, yet he weighed only 21 pounds. The paleness of the skin suggested to police that he had not been exposed to sunlight for quite a while, perhaps kept in a closet for months. There are few facts for police to work with. The victim was white or Hispanic with black hair, large dark eyes and very long eyelashes. The person who dumped the body might live in or near the apartment complex and certainly watched the child die slowly.

Again, investigators say a solution will only come with identification of the child, made more difficult in this case by the fact that the child might have been kept hidden from neighbors, landlords, etc. for a very long time.

Extract from: http://lifeloom.com/I3UnsolvedCrimes.htm

Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:24 am posted by merlynsam

AGAIN - PLEASE DO NOT OPEN IF YOU MAY BE UPSET. THE VIDEO BEGINS WITH AN ARTIST'S IMPRESSION OF THE CHILD WHEN LIVING - FROM THE FBI PRESS RELEASE.

Video - Help Identify Beloved Doe

Duration : 3'42

Description: Unidentified 3-6 year old male found March 13, 2003
in Houston, TX. Died of STARVATION

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=25537293

Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:35 am posted by merlynsam

SEEKING INFORMATION

UNIDENTIFIED DECEASED CHILD
HOUSTON, TEXAS
MARCH 13, 2003

DESCRIPTION

Age: 3 to 6 years old
Sex: Male
Height: 2'5" to 2'6"
Weight: 18 to 28 pounds
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Race: White, possibly Hispanic
Complexion: Unknown

Remarks: The child had a surgical scar on the right side of his neck, two vertical scars on his abdomen, and a small mole on his right forearm. He had extremely bushy eyebrows and long eyelashes. His right ear is larger than his left ear.

THE DETAILS SURROUNDING THE CRIME

An unidentified male child, nicknamed Beloved Doe, was discovered on March 13, 2003, in a dumpster belonging to an apartment complex in Houston, Texas. The child had been wrapped in a gray afghan-style blanket and placed in a red and white checkered bag (pictured below). He was wearing a diaper with a design of bears on the front.

A medical examination on the body indicates the child died of starvation. Aside from acute malnutrition, no other signs of abuse or injuries were found. The child may have received prior medical treatment at a hospital.

REWARD

The FBI is offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading to the identification of Beloved Doe, his parents, or caretaker.

DO NOT OPEN THIS LINK IF YOU FEEL YOU WOULD BE UPSET - CONTAINS A PICTURE OF THE DECEASED CHILD

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/seekinfo/beloveddoe.htm

Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:48 am posted by merlynsam

WARNING - ARTICLE CONTAINS AN ARTIST'S IMPRESSION OF THE CHILD WHEN LIVING. SOME USEFUL LINKS IN THE ARTICLE BUT PLEASE HEED THE AUTHOR'S WARNINGS WHEN YOU MAY NOT WISH TO CLICK

Kansas City

Monday, February 04, 2008

by James Hart

Who was Beloved Doe?

http://blogs.kansascity.com/crime_scene/2008/02/who-was-beloved.html

Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:56 am posted by merlynsam

WARNING - THIS LINK CONTAINS SEVERAL ARTISITS' IMPRESSIONS OF THE CHILD WHEN LIVING.

The Doe Network:

Case File 618UMTX

http://doenetwork.org/cases/618umtx.html

Tue Feb 05, 2008 5:19 am posted by merlynsam

Websleuths have been on the case since last December. One of their members (barb0301) is in direct contact with the detective leading the case and is passing on ideas and suggestions as well as obtaining additional information.

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57519

On page 3, they have turned up a POSSIBLE match with a missing child.

http://childsearch.org/show_missing.php?id=61

Tue Feb 05, 2008 8:35 am posted by pam supportfromireland

Disturbing article

Houston Chronicle

4 February 2008

Authorities ask for help identifying boy found in trash in 2003

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5511723.html


Thanks Merly, I found details of this case last night and had to sleep as was tired. I'm hopeful it will be solved as a massive resolve in USA to identify children.

Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:27 pm posted by hope4maddy

I saw this before. It makes me sick that a parent can throw their child away as if they are a piece of trash. And, treat them as trash when they are here on Earth. Makes me so angry! :cry:

Tue Feb 05, 2008 5:03 pm posted by merlynsam

Hope4Maddy

There is a suggestion in some of the information that the child might have been terminally ill (he had well-healed surgical scars on his neck and his stomach indicating some kind of feeding disorder). There is no evidence of any injuries for example - either recent or prior. Just evidence of a sick child. You will know far better than I, but there might have been issues about medical insurance having been "maxed out". The family could have been illegal immigrants....

You and I will never relate to anyone putting a child into a dumpster, but there are signs that the child was carefully prepared (hair cut and nails clipped) before they did so. The authorities are suggesting that this MAY have been a set of curcumstances which the family did not know how to deal with legally and legitimately.

I just hope that he can be identified so that the end of his life has a final dignity - and the family traced to find out what the circumstances were.

Tue Feb 05, 2008 6:22 pm posted by crys

I agree merly, it seems to me that it is not as straight forward as an abuse case here.

I opened the page and saw the little boy, my od, what i wouldn't do right now to give that poor little mite a good cuddle and some love. so sad. i hope they find out who he is and why he came to such a sad end.

Tue Feb 05, 2008 6:46 pm posted by merlynsam

Crys - if you have looked at the picture (as I have) did you notice how tiny his head was? You can see that it is being held by hands in blue surgical gloves.

He is so small (possibly due to his illness) that he was incorrectly 'aged' at first. It is only the fact that he has molars that the FBI had to revise the age guestimate.

No news yet on whether it could be little Andy - information was sent to the detective on 18th January.

Mon Mar 10, 2008 4:33 pm posted by merlynsam

Posted on Websleuths 18th February 2008

Unfortunately, the number of leads have died down on this, and although they still have some to follow up, Beloved Doe (aka Amado Angelito), still remains unidentified.

Posted by pamsupportfromireland
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2008 10:58 am

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WARNING UPDATE NEWS IS VERY DISTRESSING

Chronicle, Houston,Texas

25 April 2008

Mother charged with murder in 2003 "Beloved Doe" case

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/5727492.html

Posted by pamsupportfromireland
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2008 9:51 pm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RIP Jose.

Article has been removed so posted in full

Houston Chronicle

26th April 2008

Relief for detectives in a haunting case

Even after arrest in 'Beloved Doe' mystery, it's hard to shake images

Sgt. Breck McDaniel has attended hundreds of autopsies in his eight years as a Houston homicide detective, but he'll never shake the image of an emaciated little boy with sunken eyes and protruding ribs exposed under the morgue's harsh lights.

"Most of them blur together, but that one stands out," McDaniel said.

A maintenance man had found the boy's body in a trash bin at a southeast Houston apartment complex the morning of March 13, 2003. Wrapped in a blanket and stuffed into a red and white woven bag, the child wore nothing but a sagging diaper. He weighed less than 30 pounds.

Five years later, investigators identified the abandoned boy as 5-year-old José Bernardo Martinez. Relatives recognized his image on a Spanish-language news program and called police. His mother was arrested and charged on Thursday with felony murder.

"There's a huge sense of relief," McDaniel said Friday. "It's one of the handful of cases I still think about regularly."

The boy with no name had haunted investigators from the start.

Determined to put a name to their tiny victim, McDaniel, 35, and his partner, homicide investigator Rick Moreno, 48, knocked on doors, put up fliers, searched missing child databases and visited hospitals, hoping to match a surgical scar on the boy's abdomen to medical records.

"All in vain," Moreno said.

"Yeah, we felt horrible," McDaniel recalled. "We don't get many cases with a victim this helpless, this innocent."

Child advocates dubbed the boy "Beloved Doe." McDaniel and Moreno went on to work a steady stream of other murders, but they never forgot the child who starved to death before being tossed out with the trash.

"I wouldn't give up," Moreno said Friday. "We'd constantly read through the file to make sure we'd followed every clue we could."

But Houston homicide detectives juggle at least four open murder cases on any given day, and Moreno didn't always have the time to devote to Beloved Doe that he would've liked.

"There were probably a couple of years we didn't work on it at all because there were no leads," he said.

The FBI offered to help, announcing a $20,000 reward for information on the case in February. A break came Tuesday night, when the Spanish-language channel Univision aired a segment on Beloved Doe that featured a photograph of the dead child's face, along with a composite drawing.

Painful memories
On Thursday, authorities charged Ma Dana Martinez, 30, in the starvation death of her son. The steelyard worker is accused of failing to provide adequate nutrition and hydration to the child, who was blind.

Moreno said closing the case has been a highlight of his 28-year career with HPD.

Investigating child deaths is the most difficult part of a homicide detective's job, said Jim Binford, who retired last year after more than three decades with the Houston Police Department's homicide division.

"I will forever miss being a police officer, but I don't miss baby autopsies," said Binford, 60. "It's the very nature of a police officer to be protective, so when the victim is a child, it really goes to the weakest link in his chain."

Binford still remembers standing in the morgue, looking down at the body of a little boy who'd been beaten to death with a telephone cord because he'd wet his bed.

"I kept losing count somewhere in the area of 300 wounds on him where a boyfriend of his mama had beaten him and stomped on him," Binford said. "Those are cases that stay with you. And those are cases that I don't care who you are, you don't want to hear that story."

'I remember I lost it'
Retired HPD homicide Capt. Bobby Adams said the only time he ever cried on the job was at the sight of a strangled baby's body on a windowsill. It was 1962 and he was a rookie homicide detective.

"I remember I lost it," he said. "And that was a long time and a lot of people ago."

Adams, 72, learned to rein in his emotions at murder scenes over the course of 21 years in the homicide division, but he never forgot the dead baby in the window.

"I think you'll find most seasoned homicide detectives are pretty soft, really," Adams said. "You'd think they would get so hard but they're not. They have to put up a certain front and have a professional demeanor, but they're pretty soft-hearted."


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5732144.html

Houston Chronicle

29th April 2008

No bail for Beloved Doe's mother, Houston judge orders



A Houston woman accused of starving her 5-year-old son and discarding his body in a trash bin five years ago was trying to flee before police arrested her last week, a prosecutor said today.

Maria Dana Martinez, 30, will remain jailed without bail as she awaits trial on a charge of felony murder, a judge decided.

State District Judge Jim Wallace denied bail after hearing the report that she had planned to flee and learning she is a Mexican citizen who is in this country illegally.

Martinez showed no emotion and listened quietly as a translator whispered in her ear during the brief probable-cause hearing.

(continues)

http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=223661

Washington News

March 20, 2009

Former Harris County prosecutor honored by FBI director

(snippet)

Among the cases: Thanks to an anonymous tips relayed by Crime Stoppers, FBI agents and law enforcement officers were able to solve a five-year mystery surrounding the so-called "Beloved Doe" case.

Officers last year finally identified the body of a starved, unidentified 5-year-old boy whose remains were found in a dumpster near the Willow Creek Apartment Complex in 2003. The mother of José Bernardo Martinez, Maria Dana Martinez, 31, pleaded guilty on Dec. 12 to a charge of murder. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison, court records show.

http://blogs.chron.com/txpotomac/2009/03/former_harris_county_prosecuto.html