She had lived with her father in Tooele, west of Salt Lake City, until her father’s escalating series of obsessive texting, surveillance and stalking drove her to move into a hotel for a few days, according to court documents.
The charges alleged the stalking behavior had gone on for months, and that the “text messages from the defendant to the victim are more of the nature of a jealous lover than a father.” Martinez also found a bag of her underwear in his room, prosecutors said. Then, in mid-July he placed a tracking device on her vehicle while she was out of the country and later used it to find her and a romantic interest out by a hiking area, according to the charges.
When she returned to their house on the morning of July 31, her father strangled her, investigators said. Cameras on the property were quickly disabled or disconnected, but Martinez-Ayala left plenty of digital footprints, including location data on his phone and his daughter’s phone, as well as a text message to his brother that afternoon, according to investigators.