Murder case headed to a grand jury

By Amanda Stewart

Published: March 18, 2008

At the time of his arrest, Jose David Martinez-Zeron said that the woman he is accused of killing attacked him first, a Manassas police detective said in Prince William General District Court Tuesday.

Police said that Martinez-Zeron, 18, killed 19-year-old Breneley Ester Lessing-Yanez on Aug. 15, in the basement apartment she rented in a townhouse in the 8600 block of Mahogany Court in Manassas.

Martinez-Zeron is charged with first-degree murder and appeared in Prince William General District Court Tuesday for a preliminary hearing. A judge ruled that there was suficient evidence to send the charge to the grand jury.

Lessing-Yanez’s landlord found her body on the morning of Aug. 15, when he went to the basement apartment to ask her to turn down the loud music coming from her apartment, Manassas police said.

By the time police arrived,  around 8:30 a.m., Martinez-Zeron had left the scene.  Police found and arrested him at around 9:30 p.m. the next day.

Martinez-Zeron told police that he had consensual sex with Lessing-Yanez on the night of Aug. 15. After they had sex, according to Martinez-Zeron,

Lessing-Yanez “went off,” and “started saying how she hated men,” Manassas police Detective G. A. Guyton testified in court Tuesday.

“[Martinez-Zeron] said that she then pulled a wooden object from under her bed and attempted to stab him,” Guyton said.

Martinen-Zeron told police that the object was a wooden stake, sharpened at one end. Police did not find such an object when they later searchd the crime scene, Guyton said.

Martinez-Zeron then punched Lessing-Yanez, pulled a phone cord out of the wall socket, got on top of her and strangled her with the phone cord, Guyton said.

He told police that he then left the apartment, changed his clothes and threw the shirt and pants he was wearing into the woods, Guyton testified.

Lessing-Yanez’s landlord told police that he saw Martinez-Zeron leaving the basement apartment and that his clothes had blood on them.

The grand jury will consider the charge against Martinez-Zeron on April 7. If the grand jury indicts him a trial date will then be set in Prince William Circuit Court.

Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-878-8014.