Persistent Daughter Found Her Father’s Killer And Brought Him To Justice

A woman whose life was torn apart by the killing of her father as a child says she finally feels at peace after helping to bring the perpetrator to justice. Years after her father’s murder, Joselyn launched her own online investigation into his killer, leading to Justo Santos being charged with murder and sentenced to ten years in prison!Show more

This woman’s father was killed and she refused to pretend like it never happened. She decided to find his killer and was so determined to succeed! Of course she knew that it won’t bring the person back, but she wanted justice to be served!

In America, around a third of the homicides go unsolved every year, but when cases go cold for the victims’ friends and families, the hunt for justice continues. This woman’s father Jose Martinez better was a peaceful and generous. He met her mother in the city and decided to make a family, starting by having a place of their own and starting their own restaurant. Joselyn never saw her parents fight at home or at the restaurant.

On day in 1986, Joselyn’s world would change forever! She was just nine-years-old. On a Saturday of November 22nd, 1986, they went to the business as usual, the clock was about 9 or 10, when her grandmother got a phone call that Joselyn’s father has been shot outside the restaurant in Manhattan, New York. He was shot after rejecting three youths who had insulted his staff!

When Joselyn found out about the bad news she prayed and hoped that God will help her father, but when she heard loud screams from her parent’s bedroom she knew that things will never be the same. It was horrific, disastrous!

The guy who shot her father fled the country the next day and flew to the Dominican Republic, where the 16-year-old shooter admits the guilt but argues that it was self-defence and accidental! In 1989 he pleads guilty under Dominican Republic law to the involuntary manslaughter, he pays a fine and spends one year in jail! There was no extradition agreement with the US at the time and the NYPD closed the case! However, that wasn’t the end of the case for Joselyn!

She wanted the world to know what he did, so she tried to look him up on social media. She knew that everybody is in the computer world and everybody is in online. She was obsessed and spent countless of hours searching for this man. She wanted to find him and have him arrested!

In January 2013, she managed to gain access to one of NYPD’s files regarding her father’s case. In it, Santos’s date of birth which is a vital information for tracking him down. It was the beginning of a breakthrough in her online search!

She dug into the public records and found out that he is married. In February, 2013, Joselyn thought that she has found Santos and that he is living in Miami and working as a janitor.
She passes what she believes to be his living address to a NYPD cold case detective and after a few months investigation Santos is arrested and will spend about 10 years in prison! After the arrest, she feels relieved and satisfied, and finally feels that she can move on with her life!