Brookshire, TX: Boyfriend charged with missing woman's murder

By CINDY HORSWELL
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
May 12, 2011, 10:40PM


A 44-year-old machinist was charged Thursday with murdering his pregnant girlfriend five years ago, even though her body still remains missing.
When the charge was filed Miguel Antonio Martinez was already in the Harris County Jail on $500,000 bail for another felony charge of illegal weapons possession. Authorities had confiscated several handmade gun silencers from his southwest Houston home.
Martinez told investigators he made the silencers for his "own personal use."
His girlfriend, Senovia Medina, was 37 and three months pregnant when she disappeared after dropping off food at her mother's Houston home Jan. 5, 2006.
Without her body, Martinez's lawyer believes investigators will need more evidence to prove murder.
"And if a killing did occur it was self-defense as my client has stated," said his lawyer, Emily Detoto.
Lead investigator Sgt. J.J. Wilson said Martinez has given statements to police admitting he killed his girlfriend as she came out of the shower but said it was self-defense.
"He said they were arguing, and she struck her neck on the shower stall," he said. "He's told several versions how it happened. But he never called 911 to get medical help. He showed a total lack of concern by wrapping her body in a garbage bag and dumping it."
Searchers made another sweep Thursday through a pasture near Brookshire on Interstate 10, one of the spots that Martinez told authorities that he may have buried her. But nothing new turned up and volunteers had to stop looking because of rain, said Texas EquuSearch founder Tim Miller.
Some small bones found Wednesday have been turned over to an anthropologist to determine if they are animal or human.
Medina's brother, Angel Medina, and two sisters, Rosa and Emelinda Medina, were elated at the news that charges were filed.
Investigators got a break in the case when an unidentified acquaintance of Martinez served as informant and got statements from him about his girlfriend's death.
cindy.horswell@chron.com