POLK COUNTY, Fla. – A prime suspect in the death of a missing Polk County woman has been taken into custody, according to the sheriff’s office on Tuesday.
In a news conference, Sheriff Grady Judd said that detectives were searching “hotspots” in the area for the suspect, identified as Enrique Martinez, 26.
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However, while they were moving around, detectives spotted Martinez “casually walking” on a sidewalk north of Eagle Lake around 4 p.m., Judd explained.
Martinez — who is homeless — had been difficult to find because his family and friends have been “hiding” him, according to Judd.
“Our detectives, who were stalking him hard, were shocked that all of a sudden, here he appears just wandering down the sidewalk. But there was a reason for that,” Judd said. “We put so much pressure on his friends and his family. We made several arrests of people who had harbored him or had transported him to get him away from us that he was too hot to handle.”
The missing woman — 20-year-old Sierra Hernandez — had her disappearance reported by her family on Jan. 14, a release from the sheriff’s office states.
As part of the case, the sheriff’s office began searching for Hernandez’s vehicle, and it was ultimately determined that she had been murdered, Judd explained.
Martinez — who is also known by his nickname, “Kiki” — already faces a first-degree murder charge, with an arrest warrant stemming from a homicide in November 2023, the release shows.
In that case, a homeless man was killed in a camp at 2nd Eloise Terrace in Winter Haven, the sheriff’s office stated.
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Judd added during a news conference on Monday that Hernandez’s body had been recovered, but additional information would be shared at a later time.
“There is information that we know, and we don’t want to confirm it here because some of those that we need to talk to, some of the other suspects are still at large,” he explained. “We don’t want someone to say, ‘Well, we saw this when the sheriff talked about it.’ We want to hear it from their own lips.”
Detectives said that Martinez has a “very lengthy and violent criminal history” stretching back to 2011, consisting of 13 felonies and 15 misdemeanors.
He spent five years in prison after “stabbing an ex-girlfriend in the face,” though he was eventually released in November 2022, Judd stated.
No additional information has been provided at this time, including what charges Martinez could face in Hernandez’s death.
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