a day ago
Bronx Trinitarios member who stabbed Lesandro ‘Junior' Guzman Feliz to death dies in prison: records
The Trinitarios gang member who delivered the fatal stab to 15-year-old Lesandro 'Junior' Guzman Feliz has died in state prison custody, public records show, less than a month after he was re-sentenced for the Bronx teen's shocking murder.
Jonaiki Martinez Estrella, 31, is listed as 'deceased' as of Friday on the state Corrections Department's online inmate locator. No other details about his death were immediately available Sunday. He was being housed in the maximum-security Coxscakie Correctional Facility.
Junior's caught-on-video June 20, 2018 killing horrified and outraged the city.
Martinez Estrella was part of a group of gang members who mistook Junior for a member of a rival Trinitarios set and chased him into Cruz and Chiky Grocery on E. 183rd St. near Bathgate Ave. in Belmont. They dragged him out to the street and butchered him with knives and a machete.
Martinez Estrella plunged a large knife into Junior's throat, severing his jugular vein.
He was initially convicted of first-degree murder and faced life without parole but an appeals court tossed that charge in March 2023, ruling that 'the evidence did not establish the very specific elements of that crime,' namely that he intended to inflict torture on Junior before his death.
Martinez Estrella remained convicted of second-degree murder, conspiracy and gang assault. On May 30, a Bronx Criminal Court judge re-sentenced him to 25 years to life.
