Peter Martinez
Police have identified the man whose body washed ashore in New York in a plastic bag with his feet in cement as a former convict.
Peter Martinez, 28, had been missing for weeks. A student discovered his remains inside of a black plastic bag near Brooklyn’s Kingsborough Community College, the New York Daily News reports.
Martinez was found with his hands tied behind his back and his feet stuck in poured concrete. He reportedly had ties to rapper Bobby Shmurda, according to XXL Mag.
His girlfriend said the man “owed a lot of money,” but while the manner of his death is suspicious, authorities say he was neither shot nor stabbed.
Still, the exact cause of death will not be known until his autopsy is completed.
Officials say the victim was a former convict who had been arrested 31 times. In 2011, he was thrown in jail for identity theft.
The man had also been the victim of crime. In 2008, he was shot in the leg, The New York Times reports.
Experts say they are shocked by the unusual manner in which the man was killed.
His head was found wrapped in duct table, and — in the place where his feet should have been — a five-gallon bucket filled with concrete encased his legs.
“I’ve definitely never heard of this happening before. It’s just one of those stories that goes around. I think you’ve got a first there, by the sounds of things,” said British crime writer Mike Dash, who has written about mafia killings, The New York Times reports.
This is not the first time a murder involving what The New York Times calls “cement shoes” has occurred.
Deaths like these, officials say, have sometimes been associated with the mafia.
In 1964, 52-year-old Ernest Rupolo was found dead in New York with two concrete blocks tied to his legs.
He had once informed on Vito Genovese, a mafia leader, to police. Rupolo soon went missing and was later found dead.
“The underworld never forgets,” a judge once said after Rupolo was promised police protection if he were to be freed from prison for a shooting case.
Sources: New York Daily News, XXL Mag, The New York Times (2) / Photo credit: Martinez family
