CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — A man charged in an Ohio shooting that killed four people and injured a child earlier this year has now been charged in a slaying in New Jersey a decade ago, authorities said.
Martin Muniz, 41, was charged in Cuyahoga County in January with multiple counts of aggravated murder as well as attempted murder, assault and other charges in a shooting in Cleveland in January.
Prosecutors in Camden County, New Jersey, said last week that after his arrest in Cleveland, Muniz “provided information” that resulted in New Jersey prosecutors charging him with first-degree murder in the October 2013 slaying of 45-year-old Jaime Molina in Camden.
The (Cherry Hill) Courier-Post reports that a weapon seized from Muniz during a December 2013 arrest matched a shell casing found near Molina’s body, according to a probable cause statement in support of the New Jersey charge.
Muniz is being held in lieu of $5 million bond in the Jan. 13 slayings in Ohio. Cleveland police alleged in a criminal affidavit that Muniz shot each of the victims in the head in a different room in the Brooklyn Centre neighborhood home, then flagged down a police cruiser and directed officers to the scene.
The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office identified three people pronounced dead at the scene as 69-year-old Miguel Gonzalez, the defendant’s father; 34-year-old Angelic Gonzalez, his sister; and her 16-year-old son Jayden Baez. A 48-year-old man later died at a hospital and his 8-year-old daughter was critically wounded.
Camden County authorities said they had been investigating for almost a decade after Molina was found shot on a Camden street in October 30, 2013. His wife told WPVI-TV in 2014 that she believed her husband’s drug habit may have played a role in his death, and when two friends came to get him on the day of the shooting she told him not to leave.
It’s unclear whether Muniz has an attorney in the New Jersey case. The Associated Press left a message seeking comment from his attorney in the Ohio case.
