Cajigas Murder Sentence

Jim Martyn had volunteered to personally carry out the death penalty on the man accused of killing his wife. He was not about to be satisfied with a verdict of second-degree murder. "They're totally out of it," Martyn said Thursday of the Westchester County Court jurors who had just convicted Carlos Cajigas, 23, in the murder of Kathleen Martyn. "It's not enough. My baby's never going to grow up with a mommy. ... I'm sentenced to life without Kathleen." Mrs. Martyn, 32, a horse-riding instructor at the Bronx stable she and her husband operated, was stabbed in the abdomen and shot through the 17-month-old daughter, Catherine, lay in a crib nearby. The widower was angered that the jury acquitted Cajigas of first-degree murder, which would have meant a sentence of life in prison without parole. Before District Attorney Jeanine Pirro decided against seeking the death penalty, Martyn told her, "I want to push the plunger" for a lethal injection. Instead, Cajigas now faces a maximum of 25 years to life when he is sentenced Dec. 9 by Judge Daniel Angiolillo. Several Martyn relatives and friends gasped as the "not guilty" verdicts were announced to the top charges, then sobbed when the guilty verdicts followed. Cajigas also wept after the verdict, said his lawyer, Allan Focarile. Another defense attorney, Jeanne Mettler, promised an appeal. The jurors acquitted Cajigas on all the counts that specified he did the shooting himself. Juror Sandra Wentworth, 65, of White Plains, said most of the panel actually believed Cajigas was the killer but didn't feel that had been proved sufficiently for a first-degree murder conviction. The jurors settled on murder counts alleging he acted in concert with Michael Fernandez, who has already pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. In essence, Cajigas was convicted by his own words. After initially denying any connection to the killing, he admitted giving to two other men driving directions to the crime, purchasing the knife used in the attack and telling them Mrs. Martyn would not resist. The jury deliberated for three days after hearing 34 witnesses and seeing exhibits including a 9 mm pistol, a hooked linoleum knife, grisly death-scene photos and a 911 tape. Cajigas knew the Martyns from when he worked at Pelham Bit Stables in the Bronx, which they operated. He was first questioned by police after they noticed that he would not go up to Mrs. Martyn's coffin when he attended her wake. He said Mrs. Martyn, was "like a second mom" and that hearing about the killing was "the shock of the century." "The real shock of the century was that he got caught," Ms. Murphy said. When he was arrested, he told detectives "You guys got nothing on me" and said he felt lucky. After learning that accomplices were talking, however, Cajigas told police that he knew all about the killing, but only because they had told him "Kathleen wasn't supposed to die," he said.