A 21-year-old man charged in connection with his 18-year-old cousin’s killing in Hartford was in court Tuesday as the victim’s devastated family members looked on.
One of the two people charged in the murder of a teenager in Hartford last week was arraigned in court on Tuesday.
Edgar Martinez, 18, was found shot to death, rolled up inside a comforter on the side of the road in Hartford on Saturday morning.
Police believe he’d been there for about a day and through their investigation determined the shooting occurred at an apartment on Magnolia Street where Martinez and the suspects lived.
The suspects charged are the victim’s cousins.
Get top local stories in Connecticut delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC Connecticut's News Headlines newsletter.
Sender Soto-Veliz was arraigned on felony charges of tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution. His bond was set at $500,000.
The Martinez family was in the courtroom for the appearance and said they didn’t think the bond was set high enough.
The state recommended $1 million and said Soto-Veliz is a flight risk.
Local
“That bail, $500,000…my brother is not worth half a million. My brother does not have a price. We need justice to be done for my brother because he can no longer ask for it,” Nimsa Martinez, Edgar’s sister, said.
“The feeling I felt was very great,” Edgar’s aunt, Veroniza Martinez Mayen, said. “It makes me wonder how the hands of that person were able to harm my nephew.”
A 17-year-old male is facing a murder charge, but hasn’t yet been transferred to adult court to be arraigned.
“Let him be judged as an adult because my nephew is no longer here,” Martinez Mayen said.
Martinez was set to turn 19 on Thursday and had just graduated high school this year.
“Edgar is a really good guy. Really good guy. I remember him always with a smile. I always remember him never angry, he’s not a troubled guy,” his cousin Brian Ortiz said.
He was a hard worker, his family said, working towards a life of his own until his life was cut short.
“Justice is what we want, because he was a child, he was a person who was just beginning to dream and they ended up taking that away from him and we don't understand why,” his aunt said.
“I thought…bringing them here, I was going to help them leave behind the crime that exists in Guatemala. It turns out that here, what we fought so hard to prevent from happening to them, happened to them," she continued.
The family is hoping to send Martinez’s body back home to Guatemala where his parents reside for a proper burial.
