Two suspects charged with the brutal machete killing of a New York teenager insist that they had no part in the grisly crime.
Jonaiki Martinez-Estrella, 24, told The New York Daily News on Saturday that he was hundreds of miles away in Pennsylvania when 15-year-old Lesandro ‘Junior’ Guzman-Feliz was dragged out of a Bronx bodega last Thursday and murdered on the street.
Surveillance video of the incident shows Guzman-Feliz being forcefully removed from the small convenience store by a group of young men and repeatedly slashed with a machete.
Joniki Martinez, 24, (L) and Jose Taveres, 21, (R), both face murder charges related to the homicide of 15-year-old Bronx teenager Lesandro ‘Junior’ Guzman-Feliz
Guzman-Feliz, who was also stabbed numerous times in the neck, attempted to run to a nearby hospital but died before doctors could treat him.
Investigators believe the attack was carried out by the Trinitarios gang members who confused Guzman-Feliz with another teen.
Lesandro ‘Junior’ Guzman-Feliz (pictured) was dragged out of a Bronx bodega last Thursday and murdered on the street
Police say that Martinez-Estrella was the one who delivered the fatal blow that ended Guzman-Feliz’s life.
But his defense attorney points out that the attacker caught on tape has a tattoo on his neck, while his client does not.
‘Look at my neck,’ Martinez-Estrella, who is being detained at the Manhattan Detention Center, told the Daily News. ‘I have nothing.’
The 24-year-old also he does not fit the description of a killer, pointing out that he works construction ‘almost every day’ and suffers from epilepsy.
Martinez-Estrella told police he ‘didn’t even know what Junior looked like until I saw his face on television’ when he was busted in Paterson, N.J., several days after the killing.
Meanwhile, Jose Tavarez, 21, told the Daily News said that his sole focus over the last year was working towards earning his high school diploma and avoiding street violence.
‘I’m a guy who works and studies,’ Tavarez claimed at the same jail. ‘I don’t have the heart to kill anyone.’
Police have arrested eight people, including Martinez-Estrella and Tavarez, in connection with the homicide and all have been charged with murder.
Martinez-Estrella and Tavarez both confirmed to the Daily News that they are friends and knew a number of suspects in the surveillance video.
While Tavarez was at the bodega on the night of Guzman-Feliz’s killing, he told the Daily News that Martinez-Estrella was not. He also said that he ran the moment someone pulled out a weapon.
‘I ran into the bodega because I was afraid,’ Tavarez said in Spanish. ‘I saw the guys with the machete and I got scared.’
Martinez-Estrella said he also knows three other suspects, Jose Muniz, Daniel Fernandez and Antonio Hernandez-Santiago, and believes they ‘are being tried for something we didn’t do.’
The murder suspect also insisted that Guzman-Feliz is ‘not the innocent child everyone is claiming he is,’ but says that family still deserves justice.
‘You come to New York to make your life better,’ Tavarez said. ‘I am not that kind of guy (who would do anything like this).’
There is a sea of candles outside the bodega which remains closed as the police continue with their investigation