When 37-year-old Nerida Martel vanished in early October, her boyfriend offered a chilling explanation – that maybe immigration agents had taken her away.
But days later, Martel’s body surfaced in a Miami canal – and now investigators say her own boyfriend, Saul Garcia Gonzalez, had fabricated the ICE claim, and is charged with killing her.
Gonzalez, 40, had told deputies he last saw her on October 6 when he left their home to take their two-year-old daughter to daycare. He said Martel was planning to catch a ride to work. But she never showed up, which shocked her employer because she was diligent about her work, the Miami Herald reported.
Gonzalez told a concerned friend that Martel “was possibly in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” according to the sheriff’s office. But when her name didn’t appear in federal detention records, the friend urged him to file a missing persons report.
Investigators soon found discrepancies in Gonzalez’s story. He told authorities that he last saw Martel at home, but told others he had dropped her at a bus stop before work, according to an arrest affidavit cited by NBC Miami.
Cellphone data further undercut his claims with records showing Martel’s phone never left the couple’s home on October 6, while Gonzalez’s device traveled to the canal where her body was later found, less than half a mile away. The phone data also showed Gonzalez returning home and then traveling back to the canal with both phones, before Martel’s phone was shut off.
There was a previous 911 call to the couple’s home in May, when a woman was heard screaming for help with a man yelling in the background. A child’s voice was also audible, but deputies were unable to locate the caller.
On October 11, just days after Gonzalez reported Martel missing, her body was found floating in a canal near SW 168th Street and SW 205th Avenue around 3:40 p.m., according to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office.
An autopsy later determined she died from a gunshot wound to the head, and the Medical Examiner’s Office ruled her death a homicide on November 25. That day, Gonzalez was arrested for second-degree murder. He denied killing Martel.
“Through investigative means, MDSO Homicide Bureau detectives were able to determine that the victim had been murdered by the subject,” the sheriff’s office said in a release.
Gonzalez appeared in court on Thursday, where a judge denied him bond, NBC Miami reported. He is currently being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Detention Center.
