There were other charges brought against the father of a six-year-old son who died of hunger in 2020. The father was found guilty of first-degree murder. Deshaun Martinez is said to have been locked in a small room for 16 hours a day for a month because he stole food while their parents were sleeping.
Anthony Martinez, 28, of north Arizona, was found guilty by a jury in Coconino County Superior Court of killing the child. Aside from that, Martinez was also found guilty of two counts of child abuse, kidnapping, and criminal attack on police officers. The judge will decide his sentence on June 28.
The boy’s autopsy showed that he weighed only 18 pounds when he died, which is a lot less than the normal weight for his age. The police said that he was killed.
We have now found the second person guilty in this case. Elizabeth Archibeque, the boy’s mother, had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and child abuse before she was sentenced to life in jail without the chance of parole in July 2023.
According to the Arizona Daily Sun, during the final arguments this week, defense attorney Joseph Carver said that Archibeque controlled the couple’s relationship and Anthony Martinez didn’t make any decisions on his own about how to raise their children.
According to the newspaper, prosecutor Michael Tunink responded to this point by saying that all the evidence in the case showed that Martinez was the one who set up and kept up the conditions that led to the boys’ situation.
Flagstaff cops found a six-year-old boy who wasn’t moving after his paternal grandmother, Ann Martinez, called 911 on March 2, 2020, saying that her younger grandson looked like he was dead.