Derek Martinez

24-year-old Christopher Kohn was killed at around 4:30 am on January 31, 1997. Reports by neighbors indicate he was “partying” with a small group of people before they brutally attacked him. Neighbors called police, who arrived around 5:00 am, finding Kohn’s body, bloody and beaten, on the corner of the mattress in the entry room. It was believed that the perpetrators were individuals that knew Kohn, and were hoping to steal the $9,000-$10,000 they knew he had hidden in his apartment. 

There is no physical or circumstantial evidence that ties Mr. Martinez to the crime, the scene of the crime, victim, or anyone who knew him. His name does not appear in any of extensive interviews or reports attached to the initial investigation. No DNA evidence was tested at the time of the crime, although many samples had been collected. When Mr. Martinez finally successfully petitioned the state to test the DNA they had collected, foreign DNA was discovered under the fingernails of the victim’s right hand, the interior doorknob of the front door, a portion of the suspected murder weapon, and a black case found near the victim. 

Mr. Martinez fought for testing on crime scene evidence, as none was conducted in 1997. When he finally succeeded in petitioning for DNA testing in 2014 and 2015, he was conclusively excluded from all evidence collected at the crime scene. The exclusion of Mr. Martinez from these key parts of the crime scene renders the state’s theory of the murder completely impossible. He was charged with beating Chris Kohn to death himself, which is impossible if other foreign DNA was found on the suspected murder weapon. 

The initial suspect, John Harris, could not be excluded from foreign DNA on the victim’s fingernail clippings, and a black case found near the body at the crime scene. Harris had admitted to, and was subsequently charged with, robbing Christopher Kohn’s apartment in search of the large sum of cash he was known to have hidden there. He robbed Kohn’s apartment on 1/26/1997 (“Super Bowl Sunday”), three days before Kohn was murdered. Several of items from Kohn’s apartment were found during a search of his house on 2/6/1997, including a duffel bag, a leather backpack, and several glass pipes.

 Approximately 6 days after the murder, John Harris was photographed with scratches on his face and back which appeared to be 5 to 6 days old. Despite the violent encounter which resulted in Kohn’s death, and despite the fact that Harris was found with scratches to his face and back within days of the murder, investigators never forwarded Kohn’s fingernails to the DOJ to be tested for DNA. 

The single piece of evidence that implicated Mr. Martinez is a confession seven years after the crime (in 2004) from his ex-wife. She has struggled with extreme PTSD for a long time, which has severely affected her trust in her own memory. At the time, she expressed doubt about some of the memories she reported, saying they “felt like movies” playing in her head. Now, she decisively does not believe that the memories she reported were real. She testified in 2019 that she no longer believes what she said in 2004 reflected real events.

Her initial statement to police was not even an eyewitness statement – a confusing phone call to her mother and a report to her Witness Protection Officer that Mr. Martinez had “just killed someone.” She did not know who, where, how, or why. When she went to a therapist at her treatment center, she was told that the events she was describing did not sound like they had actually happening. In the days following, she delivered several confusing statements to police officers. She was not consistent on how or when Martinez had told her; she claimed he had woken her up in the middle of the night to tell her that he had killed someone, and then later claimed that this interaction had happened when they had driven through a graveyard and Mr. Martinez had claimed he had killed someone buried here. The statements did not make any reference to Mr. Kohn or anyone he knew.

Her first meetings with police following this call are unrecorded. However, several take place before any meetings are recorded, along with indications they had spoken about the case during transport to the interviews -- officer prompts her to “remember what they talked about” in the car ride over when she appears confused. There is no way to determine how her first recorded statement came into being, because there is no record of her statement as it developed from a report that Martinez “just killed someone” in 2004 to the statement that it had occurred in 1997.

This includes 4 motions for DNA testing. His final petition to the California State Supreme Court, filed after an evidentiary hearing, was denied on February 16, 2022. Subsequent requests to file in the federal court were denied in 2023.

Now, the only recourse left to Mr. Martinez is clemency by the governor.