On a tragic afternoon in West New York, New Jersey, the life of 36-year-old Midalis Sanchez-Monteagudo was cut short in a violent act of domestic abuse. On December 18, 2013, while at her job at a local nail salon, Sanchez-Monteagudo was fatally shot. The Hispanic mother of three found herself in a harrowing final confrontation with her estranged husband, an event that concluded a long and fearful chapter of her life.
The man behind the gun was her 39-year-old husband, Jose Leonardo Martinez, who also went by the name Jose Gelabert. He entered the salon on Bergenline Avenue and shot his wife before fleeing the scene. This brutal act was the culmination of a tumultuous relationship marked by threats and violence. Friends and family revealed that Sanchez-Monteagudo had endured years of abuse and lived in constant fear.
Martinez had reportedly threatened to kill her, their children, and himself if she ever tried to leave him.
In the weeks leading up to the tragedy, Sanchez-Monteagudo had taken steps to end her marriage, serving her husband with divorce papers just two weeks prior to the shooting. She had also sought the protection of the law, obtaining a temporary restraining order against Martinez. However, her plea for a permanent restraining order was denied by a judge, a decision that would have devastating consequences. Tragically, her eldest son, then 17 years old, was at the scene when his mother was killed. Shortly after the shooting, Martinez was found in a nearby parking lot, having died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a tragic murder-suicide.
