ELMONT, N.Y. (1010 WINS) — A Long Island man who traveled halfway across the country to stab his ex-girlfriend to death in 2018 was convicted of murder, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Jose Franco-Martinez, 58, a former hot walker at Belmont Park, got angry with Maria Larin after she broke up with him and suspected she was seeing another man.
On June 16, 2018, he paid an acquaintance to drive him from Kansas, where he was working, to New York to kill her the following day.
"Without warning, on Father’s Day morning in 2018, he showed up to the Belmont Racetrack where she worked, waited for her to appear, and without uttering a single word, viciously attacked her with a knife," said Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly in a statement.
Larin was working as a hot walker inside the stall area of Barn 61 at Belmont Racetrack, walking horses to help them cool down after racing. As she worked, Franco-Martinez approached and stabbed her 23 times all over her body with a silver kitchen knife, prosecutors said. Larin's co-worker, who saw the incident, picked up a shovel and hit the defendant in the head with it, but he still managed to run away.
After a brief chase, security staff from the New York Racing Association apprehended the defendant and called police, prosecutors said. During the chase, Franco-Martinez threw the knife into some bushes.
He is due back for sentencing on May 19, where he faces a potential maximum of 25 years to life in prison.
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