A 17-year-old Bingham High student allegedly obsessed with a movie about mass murder is suspected of killing his stepmother and stepsister Sunday.
"There seems to be a preoccupation with the suspect and the movie, `Natural Born Killers,' " said Salt Lake County deputy sheriff Jim Potter.A friend accompanied the suspect to Pocatello Sunday, not knowing that Lauren Martinez, 42, and Alexis Martinez, 10, had been shot to death. Nathan Martinez, 17, apparently had discussed some killings, and the friend hoped to sway Martinez away from the obsession.
The movie, starring Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, portrays two people who murder at least 20 others for kicks while on a cross-country crime spree.
A forged check in Logan is what led deputies to the scene of the double homicide at 3450 W. 14250 South in Bluffdale. The mother and her young daughter were found shot to death inside their home about 2:30 p.m. by officers checking on the family's welfare.
Deputies were sent to the home after Logan police arrested a teen who was trying to pass a forged personal check that came from that Bluffdale address, said Potter.
The youth told police in Logan that he got the checks from a friend who told him he had committed some murders. "Acting on that, our officers came out here and found the bodies," Potter said.
Lauren and Alexis Martinez were both found in their beds, dead from at least one gunshot wound each. "The indication is they were shot as they slept," Potter said.
The mother taught second-grade at Jordan Ridge Elementary, where Alexis attended school as a fifth-grader. Trauma teams were at the school Monday providing emotional support for the students and the faculty, said district spokeswoman Patty Dahl.
The mother and daughter were last seen alive about 4:30 a.m. Sunday, when the father and his son left to go deer hunting. Upon returning home at about 7 p.m., the two men were met by homicide detectives and grieving friends and neighbors.
"Why? Why?," the father, Benceslau Martinez, cried in anguish when told of the shootings.
Detectives are still asking the same question.
Based upon the information provided by the teen in Logan, 17-year-old Nathan Martinez, the slain woman's stepson, is the "prime suspect," Potter said.
"Certainly they've had some behavioral problems with him, according to the dad, but nothing that would have led up to this," the deputy said.
No charges have been filed in the slayings.
The stepson was believed to be driving a gold Honda Accord and may have at least two firearms in his possession, because they were missing from the home.
Three other teens from the Bluffdale area were detained Sunday evening in Pocatello, then later released after being questioned by
a Salt Lake County detective.
A witness at an Arctic Circle restaurant in Pocatello saw a boy get out of the suspect vehicle and into a Pontiac Sunbird with two other teens, said Bannock County, Idaho, sheriff's Capt. Jerry Hickman.
Potter said the 17-year-old boy who got out of the Accord is believed to have been the friend who had traveled with the suspect. The other two, an 18-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman, were apparently friends who had been asked to drive to Pocatello and pick up the 17-year-old passenger.
Occurring on a quiet lane of modern ranchettes, the slayings shocked nearby residents, many of whom huddled together in the cold Sunday night as law enforcement officers, emergency personnel and news reporters streamed into their neighborhood.
"They were a loving family," Doug Everett said from the driveway of his house across the road from the murder scene. "It's devastating to everybody around here."
The Martinez family moved into their upscale brick rambler some two years ago, relocating from a house a block south, neighbors said.
Encircled by white livestock fencing, the ranch-style house is well-tended and its rear lot large enough for horses. A neighbor next door shared with the Martinez's daughter an interest in horses. She recalled attending equestrian shows with the girl, the two doubling up a horse trailer.
"He wasn't into the horses," the teenage girl said of Nathan Martinez, a wrestler at Bingham High. The neighbor girl, also a senior at Bingham High, recalled occasionally sharing a ride to school with the boy. He had the normal disputes with his parents but nothing that neighbors could have perceived would lead to this, she said.
"He had his problems, but they all thought he was a good kid," she said. "Nobody ever thought he was capable of this. I had no idea this could happen."