Man Convicted in Murder-for-Hire Plot in CV
A 4-year-old murder mystery was put to rest last week after a jury convicted a man for his part in a murder-for-hire plot behind a Castro Valley medical office.
Albert Jones Jr., 40, is expected to be sentenced on January 7 and likely faces life in prison for the murder of Alexander Jacob Martinez on April 10, 2016, according to court documents. Jones was convicted of first-degree murder with special circumstances in that the jury found he committed the murder for financial gain.
Martinez, 27, was a budding hip-hop producer for Bay Area rappers such as Dru Down and Keak da Sneak. The victim’s mixing studio was located in a four-unit office complex on Lake Chabot Road near Somerset Avenue. On the night of April 10, Alameda County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a report of a shooting and found Martinez dead with a single gunshot to the head in the parking lot behind the building. He was taken to Eden Medical Center, located just down the street, but he was pronounced dead.
A witness to the shooting testified that an unknown gunman approached Martinez, ordered him face down on the ground, shot him, and then fled.
During the investigation, detectives discovered Jones, his friend, had taken out life insurance policies in Martinez’s name over the five months leading up to the shooting. A search of Jones’ home revealed five different policies totaling $1.35 million and prepaid credit cards in the victim’s name.
“In an interview with detectives almost a year after the murder, the defendant admitted to opening the insurance policies, secretly installing a GPS tracking device on the victim’s car, paying a man an undisclosed amount of money to shoot the victim, as well as his unsuccessful attempts to try to collect the insurance money,” an Alameda County District Attorney’s Office statement said.
Jones explained to deputies that he and Martinez had been friends, but he was angry with the hip-hop producer over a rent dispute and wanted revenge. Detectives located the GPS device under Martinez’s car and connected the murder scene with Jones’ testimony.