Bronx street astronomer ‘Jupiter Joe’ convicted in 1999 murder

A Bronx street astronomer who killed a young girl and kept her slaying a secret for more than 20 years has been convicted in her death, the Bronx DA said Saturday.

A criminal court jury on Friday found Joseph “Jupiter Joe” Martinez guilty of second-degree murder.

Martinez, now 53, was accused of killing 13-year-old Minerliz Soriano back in 1999. The child’s murder remained unsolved for more than two decades before a new, cutting-edge DNA technique and a detective’s ruse at a diner led to the arrest of Martinez, who lived a few floors below the girl in her Pelham Parkway South apartment building, officials said.

The conviction, according to Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, brought “justice to her family after 26 years.”

“Bronx detectives and my ADAs never gave up in the quest to hold accountable the killer of this beautiful little girl,” Clark said. “It was their relentless dedication and compassion, coupled with advanced technology in DNA, that led to the arrest and conviction. I hope this verdict brings some solace to Minerliz’s family.”

One of the investigators on the case, retired NYPD Detective Malcolm Reiman, called the death of Minerliz “horrifying.”

“A child sexually assaulted, strangled to death and thrown in the garbage. It was a nightmare case,” Reiman recalled. “Justice came from teamwork at its best.”

Martinez sexually abused Minerliz and compressed her neck, causing her death. He then stuffed her body in a garbage bag and left it in a dumpster behind a video store on Bartow Ave. in Co-op City, where a maintenance worker found her on Feb. 28, 1999, four days after she disappeared.

Both Minerliz and Martinez liked astronomy, a common interest that ultimately led to the girl’s death.

“She wanted him to show her the stars. Instead, he threw her into the dumpster,” Bronx Assistant DA John Miras said in his opening statement at the beginning of Martinez’s trial in late September.

As detectives struggled to find the killer, Martinez presented himself an affable grinning astronomy enthusiast who gave impromptu lessons to children and ran his own stargazing channel on YouTube. Videos show him interviewing fellow star-watchers, including young children, chatting with an author, unboxing telescope equipment and attending a festival to watch an eclipse in 2017.

But Minerliz’s murder lurked under the surface of Martinez’s starlit persona, prosecutors allege.

“Minerliz had a special interest. Minerliz liked telescopes and comets and the planets and the stars,” Miras said. She told her close friend, Kimberly Ortiz, all about how she’d be the first Latina astronaut from the Bronx.

“And Kimberly said, ‘They don’t make people like you and me astronauts.’ And Minerliz said, ‘You say what you want. I’m going to be an astronaut,’” Miras told the jury.

Minerliz wanted a telescope for her 13th birthday on Jan. 17, 1999, but her birthday came and went and she didn’t get her wish, the prosecutor said.

Then five weeks later, on Feb. 24, 1999, she vanished. Kimberly stayed late for an after-school program at their school, Intermediate School 135 in Bronxdale, but Minerliz decided to go home. She never made it back.

At the time, nothing made Martinez stood out from anyone else in Minerliz’s building.

Detectives combed through the young victim’s life and routine but found nothing that would lead them to a killer. The studious youngster had no boyfriend and no history of running away from home.

Detectives did have DNA from the scene that helped them eliminate other persons of interest.

“She’s found wrapped in a fetal position, all wrapped up in a ball with something called gaffer’s tape wrapped around her, placed in numerous garbage bags and thrown right into a dumpster,“ Miras said. “The killer… he left his signature on Minerliz. Her body’s taken to the morgue and on her sweatshirt are two drops of semen.”

But the killer remained a mystery for 22 years, until investigators ran a familial DNA search — a technique which gained prominence nationwide after it helped unmask the Golden State Killer in 2018.

Martinez’s deceased father, whose DNA was in a database after a sexual abuse arrest, was a partial match. That led detectives to think of Martinez, and his shared interest in astronomy, Miras said.

One detective reached out to Martinez, posing as a mom who was looking for an astronomy lesson for her daughter, and they set up a meeting at a diner in New Rochelle, N.Y., where Martinez was then living.

Afterwards investigators snagged a straw Martinez used, tested it for DNA and matched it to the semen on Minerliz’s shirt.

Martinez denied being the killer throughout the trial. He’s expected to be sentenced in January.