Singer/actress Joselyn Martinez has finally been able to gain a little peace after playing amateur detective and helping police track down her father's murderer.
The New York native witnessed her father's murder in 1986 outside of their Washington Heights family-owned restaurant, and 26 years later, Martinez helped bring justice to her father' legacy, and peace to herself and family.
Martinez, now 36-years-old, used the Internet and paid less than $300 to a background-check site that helped her track down her father's killer, Justo Santos.
"Knowing the person my father was, I couldn't live with myself if [Santos] stayed free," Martinez told the New York Daily News. "I need to see him in New York to know that this has really happened."
When Martinez found information on a man fitting the description of her father's murderer, she immediately went to the authorities.
"I always kept the name in mind," Martinez told the New York Post. "After so many years of not being caught, it wasn't a reality to me anymore."
She even kept Santos' wanted posters as a reminder of her mission and started her investigation as early as 2004 using social media sites like Myspace to perform her search.
When Martinez finally uncovered the information, she immediately took it to the authorities; they took the information and traveled all the way to Florida where they found Santos who confessed to killing Martinez's father.
Her mother, Idalia Martinez told reporters she's proud of her daughter for bringing the man that destroyed their lives to justice.
"He ruined my life," Idalia told the Post. "He ruined the life of my daughter. She suffers without him every day."
Santos is currently being held in Miami while detectives in the NYPD schedule a time to travel to Florida to extradite him.
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