Pubdate: Thu, 01 Jun 2006
Source: Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City, UT)
Copyright: 2006 Deseret News Publishing Corp.
Contact:  http://www.desnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/124
Author: Pat Reavy

2 TO SERVE TIME IN OD DEATH

Teens Failed To Call '1 -- Then Dumped Friend's Body

WEST JORDAN -- Two teenagers who dumped the body of their friend near 
the Point of the Mountain after he fatally overdosed on drugs were 
sentenced to jail and juvenile detention Wednesday. Zachary Tyler 
Martinez       Zachary Tyler Martinez, 18, died of a drug overdose 
March 11, 2005. Rather than call for help when Martinez appeared to 
be in trouble or even after he died, the teens dumped his body at the 
Salt Lake County Hang-Gliding Park. Wednesday, two boys, now aged 17 
and 18, were sentenced in juvenile court for their roles in the crime.

The Deseret Morning News does not print the names of people charged 
in juvenile court. The younger boy, who was 15 at the time of the 
incident and was the one prosecutors said talked the others out of 
calling 911, was given a maximum possible sentence of 30 days in 
juvenile detention, 125 hours of community service, fined $2,250 and 
placed on probation.

"You were the one who made the decisions in this case," said 3rd 
District Juvenile Court Judge Christine S. Decker. The other boy, 
despite being 17 at the time of the incident, was sentenced to 14 
days at the Salt Lake County Jail in addition to being ordered to 
serve 50 hours of community service and pay a $750 fine. "Given what 
happened, you need to spend two weeks in jail as an adult," Decker 
said. The sentences came just one day after Macall Aubrey Petersen 
was sentenced to up to five years in prison for dumping the body of 
her friend, Amelia Sorich, after she died from a drug overdose.

Martinez's parents, however, were unsatisfied with the sentences. "I 
felt they got off easy," said Zach's mother, Georgia Martinez. "I 
don't think they're really going to learn from it. I don't think 30 
days will get them off drugs." The Martinez family believes the boys 
should have been charged with murder and the parents who were in the 
home at the time of the party should have also been charged.

"I am completely baffled by the the actions from the district 
attorney," Mike Martinez, Zach's father, said in court. "It's 
mystifying the lack of outrage and concern for justice. . . . It's a 
slap in our faces.

Overdoses have become Salt Lake County's throw-away children." 
Martinez used words such as "callous," "heinous" and "cold-blooded" 
to describe the actions of the 17-year-old boy. "These kids have 
shown no remorse at all for the life of my son," he said. Even though 
the boys received the maximum possible sentences, Martinez said it 
was nothing. "I lost my son. That's what the maximum is," he said. 
"It's next to nothing what these kids will get considering what we 
have lost." Before being sentenced, each boy addressed the Martinez 
family with awkward apologies. "I miss Zach every single day," the 
younger boy said. "I made a mistake.

I have to live with that every single day of my life. I miss Zach 
more than you would believe. . . . I hope you can forgive me. I'm 
very, very, truly sorry." But outside the courtroom, Georgia Martinez 
said the body language of the boys, who showed nearly no emotion 
during the hearing, said it all. "I don't think they were truly 
remorseful," she said. Still, Martinez said she forgives the boys.

"I'll never understand why you boys thought your lives were so 
important you let a friend die," she told them during an emotional 
address to the boys in court. "I feel you treated Zach with no 
respect at all. "This is one of the hardest things I'll ever have to 
do. . . . I forgive you because that's what Zach would have wanted me 
to do. I forgive you but I will never forget," she said. Martinez, 
the two defendants and two others were partying at the 17-year-old 
boy's house after school.

The group was snorting heroin, smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol 
in the basement, according to prosecutors. Upstairs, the 17-year-old 
boy's parents were home as were two 10-year-old girls. Decker called 
the entire incident a "tragedy" and said it was "surreal" to think of 
high school aged kids indulging in drugs as an afterschool pastime. 
"What you did was callous," she told the boys during sentencing. 
"What you were trying to do was save your own skins."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman