Woman sentenced to prison for beating man to death with glass bottle

CATAWBA COUNTY, N.C. — A woman was sentenced to prison for murdering a man in Catawba County back in 2021.

Police said 72-year-old Robert Bruce Godfrey’s son found him dead inside his apartment on Dec. 4, 2021 at Preston Ridge off Startown Road. He was last seen on Thanksgiving.

Godfrey’s son found the apartment was messy and his father’s car was missing from the complex.

The car was later found in Camden, Georgia with two people inside: Bryana Salymar Martines and her co-defendant in the case. Martines was named a person of interest in Godfrey’s death.

Detectives interviewed the man who was with Martines. At the time, he was in jail in Lancaster County, South Carolina. He told investigators he and Martines had been dating for two months when she admitted to murdering Godfrey by hitting him on the head several times with a glass object.

Martines was taken into custody on Dec. 8, 2021 -- four days after Godfrey’s body was found -- and interviewed. She told detectives she and Godfrey has been in a relationship earlier, and when it ended, she started seeing the co-defendant.

She admitted to investigators that the last time she saw Godfrey, she killed him by hitting him on the head with a bottle. An autopsy report confirmed that information, saying Godfrey died from blunt force trauma to the head.

Martines’ co-defendant is still awaiting trial.

Bryana Martines, now 25 years old, pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder. She was sentenced to 20 to 25 years in prison.

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