March 08--The wife of a Houston firefighter accused of trying to hire a hitman to kill her husband wanted the proposed slaying to "look work related," prosecutors said in court Thursday.
"She wanted it done at work, so it would look 'work-related,'" said Assistant District Attorney Paula Hartman.
Hartman did not know why Brittany Rachelle Martinez, 24, wanted to have her paramedic firefighter husband killed near his firehouse, but she said the plot was elaborate.
"She provided a vehicle description and license plate number, work schedules and told where cameras were," Hartman said after Martinez was arraigned Thursday in state District Judge Randy Roll's court.
After the hearing, Martinez's attorney, George Parnham, said he is investigating the allegations.
"It's a bizarre scenario," Parnham said. "We're going to try to get to the bottom of it."
Martinez, a mother of two, is charged with solicitation of capital murder, accused of trying to hire a friend to kill Adrian Martinez for $2,000.
Parnham said his client, who has never been in jail before, is not handling it well.
"She's morose, sad, scared to death," he said. "She's just a scared young lady."
Martinez, who is also a licensed EMT, apparently gave $1,000 to a friend, the manager of a Casa Ole restaurant.
She also gave him a photo of her husband with instructions to kill him in a parking lot behind his work to avoid security cameras across the street.
She began trying to persuade her friend to kill her husband in January because the two were having marital problems. She was arrested Tuesday.
Martinez is now being held in the Harris County Jail without bail. If convicted, she faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Copyright 2012 - Houston Chronicle
