At one moment he came at me with the knife, so I fired
Martínez discovered her husband's infidelity and hired a private investigator and divorce attorney before the shooting occurred. Martínez claimed self-defense after alleged sexual assault and knife threats, but forensic evidence showed victim was shot while in bed.
- Shooting occurred December 27, 2023, in El Paso
- Luz Elena Martínez, 54, sentenced to 20 years on May 13, 2026
- José Luis Ávalos Reyes, 47, shot multiple times while in bed
- Martínez had hired private investigator and divorce attorney before the killing
- Forensic evidence contradicted her self-defense claim
Luz Elena Martínez, 54, received a 20-year prison sentence for fatally shooting her unfaithful husband José Luis Ávalos Reyes in El Paso on December 27, 2023. She claimed self-defense, but police evidence contradicted her account.
Two days after Christmas 2023, in the pre-dawn hours of December 27th, police in El Paso responded to a call on French Place near Delta Park. They found José Luis Ávalos Reyes, 47, dead in his bed with multiple gunshot wounds. A knife lay near his left hand. A pistol sat on the nightstand. The woman who shot him was his wife.
Luz Elena Martínez, 54, had discovered her husband's infidelity weeks earlier. She hired a private investigator to follow him and retained a divorce attorney to handle the separation. But before the legal machinery could turn, something broke. In the darkness of that December morning, she fired the gun repeatedly.
When questioned, Martínez told the medical examiner she had acted in self-defense. Her husband, she said, had come at her with the knife and assaulted her sexually. "At one moment he came at me with the knife, so I fired," she explained. "Then he got up with the knife and I fired again." The narrative was one of desperation, of a woman cornered and forced to protect herself.
But the physical evidence told a different story. Police investigators found that Ávalos Reyes had been shot while lying in bed—at close range. He had not risen up with the knife as Martínez claimed. The knife, moreover, was positioned near his left hand, despite the fact that he was right-handed. These details, documented in the detective's affidavit, created a gap between what Martínez said happened and what the scene suggested actually occurred.
Martínez evaded arrest for months. On March 11, 2024, the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force found her in the 5700 block of Alameda and took her into custody on a homicide warrant. Two days later, she pleaded guilty. On May 13, 2026, Judge Patricia Baca of the 346th District Court of El Paso County sentenced her to twenty years in prison. She received credit for 794 days already served in custody awaiting trial.
The case closed with a guilty plea rather than a jury verdict, which meant the inconsistencies between her account and the forensic findings never faced full courtroom scrutiny. What remained was the fact of the shooting, the fact of the death, and the fact of a woman now serving two decades for a moment that destroyed two lives—one ended, one imprisoned.
Notable Quotes
In a moment he came at me with the knife, so I fired; then he got up with the knife and I fired again.— Luz Elena Martínez, to the medical examiner
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did she wait so long to act? She had hired lawyers, investigators—she was already leaving.
That's the question that hangs over everything. Maybe discovering the infidelity broke something in her that legal process couldn't repair. Maybe she confronted him that night and it escalated. We don't really know.
The self-defense claim—did anyone believe it?
The physical evidence didn't support it. He was in bed when he was shot. If he'd come at her with a knife like she said, the scene would have looked different. The positioning of the knife, his position in the bed—it all contradicted her story.
So she pleaded guilty knowing the evidence was against her?
Yes. She admitted to the killing but maintained it was self-defense. The guilty plea meant she didn't have to go to trial, didn't have to face a jury with all that forensic evidence laid out. She accepted twenty years.
What about the infidelity? Does that matter legally?
Not for the charge itself. Infidelity doesn't justify killing someone. But it explains the motive, the desperation. She found out he was cheating, she was trying to leave—and then something happened in that bedroom that ended with him dead.
Do we know what he was like? Who he was?
Almost nothing. He's a name in a police report, a body in a bed. Forty-seven years old. That's what the record tells us. The story is really about what his wife did, not who he was.