Jose Manuel Martinez

Serial Killer

Jose Manuel Martínez: The Cartel Hitman Known as "El Mano Negra"

Background and Years of Violence

Jose Manuel Martínez, born on June 13, 1962, in California, became one of the most prolific confessed contract killers in modern American criminal history. Known by the nickname "El Mano Negra," meaning "The Black Hand," Martínez described himself as an enforcer and assassin who collected debts for Mexican drug traffickers. When payments were not made, he said he was hired to kill the people responsible. His known crimes stretched from California to Florida and Alabama, while his broader confessions implicated him in killings across numerous other states. Martínez claimed that he began killing while still a teenager and continued for more than three decades. He eventually confessed to approximately 36 murders, although authorities were unable to independently prove every claim. Twelve killings resulted in murder convictions: nine in California, two in Florida and one in Alabama. Investigators also connected him to an attempted murder in California. Most of Martínez's confirmed victims were adult men. The killings were usually calculated rather than impulsive. Victims were shot in isolated agricultural areas, orange groves, rural roads or forests where their bodies might not be discovered immediately. Several of the California murders remained unsolved for decades because the victims had been killed in remote parts of the Central Valley and there was little physical evidence identifying the gunman.

Confirmed Victims and Locations

• David Bedolla, 23 October 21, 1980: Bedolla was killed in Tulare County, California, in a rural area between Lindsay and Strathmore. Martínez later admitted shooting him. The murder, committed when Martínez was approximately 18 years old, became the earliest California killing included in his eventual convictions.
• Sylvester Ayon, 30 October 1, 1982: Ayon was killed near Santa Ynez in Santa Barbara County, California. Martínez confessed that he carried out the shooting as part of his work settling disputes and collecting debts.
• Raul Gonzalez, 22 October 19, 1982: Gonzalez was shot and killed east of Porterville in Tulare County, California. His death occurred less than three weeks after Ayon's murder and demonstrated how freely Martínez was moving through California while committing contract killings.
• Domingo Perez, 29 April 8, 1995: Perez was killed north of Richgrove in Tulare County, California. Martínez admitted shooting him in a rural agricultural area. The killing occurred nearly 13 years after the two confirmed murders from October 1982.
• Santiago Perez, 56 February 14, 2000: Perez was killed near Pixley, California. Prosecutors later included his death among the nine California murders to which Martínez pleaded guilty.
• Javier Huerta, 20 November 8, 2006: Huerta was killed in Marion County, Florida, near the Ocala National Forest. Authorities said the murders were connected to a debt involving approximately 10 kilograms of cocaine. Huerta and Gustavo Olivares-Rivas were restrained with plastic zip ties and shot repeatedly inside a pickup truck.
• Gustavo Olivares-Rivas, 28 November 8, 2006: Olivares-Rivas was killed alongside Huerta near State Road 19 in the Ocala National Forest. He worked in construction and was reportedly drawn into the situation through his association with Huerta. Investigators discovered both men inside the truck with multiple gunshot wounds.
• Jose Alvarado, 25 February 15, 2007: Alvarado was shot to death outside McFarland in Kern County, California. Martínez later pleaded guilty to the murder as part of the California prosecution.
• Juan Bautista Moreno, 52 March 23, 2009: Moreno was killed near McFarland in Kern County, California. The remote location and lack of an immediately identified suspect allowed the case to remain unresolved until Martínez confessed years later.
• Joaquin Barragan, 45 September 30, 2009: Barragan was killed east of Earlimart in Tulare County, California. His death was another example of Martínez using the isolated farmland and roads of the Central Valley to carry out shootings away from witnesses.
• Gonzalo Urquieta, 54 February 7, 2011: Urquieta disappeared before his body was discovered in an orange grove outside Richgrove, California. He had suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Martínez later admitted responsibility, bringing an end to another previously unsolved Central Valley homicide.
• Jose Ruiz March 2013: Ruiz was shot in the head and his body was abandoned near a wooded area in Lawrence County, Alabama. Public accounts consistently identify March 2013 as the time of the murder, but do not consistently provide a verified exact day. Unlike many of Martínez's other killings, Ruiz's murder was described as personal rather than a paid cartel execution. Investigators said Martínez killed him after Ruiz made a derogatory or insulting remark about Martínez's daughter.

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Confirmed Victims: (11)

David Bedolla Age: (23), Date of Death: 1980-10-21

José Manuel Martínez (serial killer) - Wikipedia