Man, 44, fatally stabbed in Bronx; family believes it was case of mistaken identity

A 44-year-old man was brutally stabbed to death by a furious man who confronted him outside the Marble Hill Houses in the Bronx — a case of mistaken identity, the victim’s family believes.

After bizarrely accusing Juan Luis Martinez, 44, of involvement in a local high school dispute, the attacker viciously stabbed his target while a woman with him joined in the assault that unfolded Tuesday around 6:30 p.m., Martinez’s parents told the Daily News.

The victim was walking his mother and niece to his sister’s home when the man and woman hopped out of a car and abruptly accused Martinez of “hurting” the attacker’s son at nearby John F. Kennedy High School, according to Martinez’s father.

Martinez “was telling them he had nothing to do whatsoever with the incident,” said the dad, George Laboy. “The guy said he didn’t care and stabbed him.”

The crazed attacker “slit his throat, stabbed him in the chest and his back,” continued Laboy, 60.

“The guy murdered him right in front of my wife and my 5-year-old granddaughter,” he said in shock.

The assailants fled in a white Mercedes-Benz, according to police sources.

A witness saw the attack unfold on W. 228th St. near Broadway, outside the entrance to the Marble Hill Houses building where Martinez shared an apartment with his parents.

“They stabbed him many times … It was only a few minutes and it was finito,” said the witness, who would only identify himself as Lucien.

As the wounded man staggered back toward the entrance, Monea Santiago, a corrections officer from Texas who was staying in the building, said she rushed to his aid.

“I heard the commotion. I ran downstairs and he was lying on the gate,” Santiago recounted. “There was so much blood. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. His chin was split open. I pulled down his shirt and his neck was wide open. I applied a towel to his neck and I saw the stab wound to his back.”

She said the man was fighting for his life, but the wounds were mortal.

“He struggled to get up. He grabbed my wrists really, really tight. He struggled to get up and then he collapsed. He was bleeding out,” she said.

That’s when the victim’s father came out of the building yelling, “My son! My son,” she recalled.

Three NYPD officers responding to the scene of the attack picked up the wounded man, carried him to their SUV and sped off.

“It’s sad. I couldn’t do anymore. I was too late,” Santiago said.

The responding officers took Martinez to New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The victim worked in security until the COVID outbreak, according to his father. He regularly took classes at CUNY colleges to better himself in the hopes of helping his family, Laboy added.

“He would tell my wife, ‘I’m going to get you out of here, I’m going to get you out of the projects,'” the father said, noting his son “was never a person of the streets. He didn’t do drugs.”

Martinez’s mother could barely bring herself to speak Tuesday night.

“They took my son. They took my son,” said Luisa Martinez, 58. “I never thought my son would be murdered.”