BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — After buying methamphetamine from a man in a parking lot on Stockdale Highway, Matthew Jon Martinez said he became scared upon noticing a “crazy look in his eye,” according to police reports.
So scared, Martinez told detectives, he pulled a gun and shot him. He only meant to wound Anthony Wayne Martin in the leg, not kill him, he said according to the reports. Martin, 29, was hit just above his navel and died at Kern Medical that evening, coroner’s officials said.
Martinez, 37, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and is being held without bail in the Feb. 23 shooting.
Investigators reviewed surveillance footage that captured a man on a bike later identified as Martinez riding in the area at the time of the shooting, according to the reports filed in Superior Court. They interviewed multiple witnesses, including a person who said a man on a bike had been asking for Martin shortly before the shooting.
When interviewed after his March 1 arrest, Martinez said Martin did nothing except give him a look before he shot him, according to the filings. He said he fled and later dropped the gun off at an acquaintance’s home, reports say.
Martinez shaved his mustache afterward but told investigators he removed it after accidentally trimming it too high and hadn’t intended to change his appearance, according to the filings. He’s due back in court March 24.
