Murder USA: NSA Employee Jason Martin charged with bludgeoning wife to death with a dumbbell
LAUREL, MD. — There is a new horror house in Laurel, just in time for Halloween. Perhaps the lights will be off but that won’t change what took place there just a few days before the night of ghosts and goblins. After putting the kids to bed, cops say the killer then bludgeoned mommy with a barbell until she was dead.
Howard County Police report the arrest of a mathematician and college professor who killed his wife in their home after a neighbor reported trouble. In twenty-four hours, the man had been arrested and released on a half-million dollars bond.
Howard County police have arrested and charged a Laurel man with killing his wife last night in their home. Jason W. Martin, 41, of 9504 Glen Ridge Drive, has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of Carla Dee Martin, 42. The preliminary cause of death was blunt force trauma.
Police received a 911 call around 11 p.m. on Oct. 27 from a neighbor who reported unknown trouble at the Martin’s residence. The caller advised that Jason Martin had come to their home and reported that his wife was injured. He was observed with blood on his clothing.
Officers arrived and found Carla Martin in the basement with injuries consistent with blunt force trauma. They also located a dumbbell nearby covered in blood. Carla Martin was transported to Laurel Regional Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Jason Martin was taken into custody at the scene. Three children who were inside the home did not witness the incident and were placed in the custody of Carla Martin’s family members.
Jason Martin was released on bond posted in Howard County District Court on Oct. 29, but Vicky Martin, of Stafford, Va.
WBAL reported:
“When we arrived on the scene, we found a woman in the basement suffering from what appeared to be blunt force trauma. She was transported to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead,” Howard County police spokeswoman Sherry Llewellyn said.
Jason Martin, who has no criminal record, was arrested at the scene.
During his bail review hearing on Thursday, Martin’s attorney said Martin had no criminal record and were working on his doctorate in mathematics at Cornell University.
Martin, whose parents were in the courtroom Thursday, is employed as a mathematician by the National Security Agency.
“After finding the victim, officers located a dumbbell in the basement that was covered in blood, so they’re looking at that as the likely murder weapon,” Llewellyn said.
Police said that three children inside the home at the time of the killing, all under the age of 12, did not witness the incident and were placed in the custody of Carla Martin’s family. At the conclusion of his bail review hearing, Martin was ordered to have no contact with his children and be placed on pre-trial supervision by the Division of Parole and Probation.
Sadness tinged with shock for neighbors.
“I just feel very, very, very sad for the children,” said Bernadette Olsen, a neighbor.
“It’s heartbreaking; it’s sad. I’ve lived my whole life on this street, too. That’s crazy. I would have never thought anything would have happened around here,” said Brenna Davis, a neighbor.
Carla Martin was a professor and mathematician.
From Jason Martin’s Linked In Profile:
Current goal is for my cryptographic hashing algorithm, ESSENCE, to make it to the next round of the SHA-3 competition!
Specialties: Number Theory, Cryptography, and Teaching
Professor of Mathematics
James Madison University
August 2006 – Present (9 years 3 months)
I teach!! I also try to get some research done. My current research project is cryptographic hashing. I have a submission, called ESSENCE, to the SHA-3 competition that NIST is running.
Computer Engineer
Naval Research Laboratory
August 1996 – August 1999 (3 years 1 month)
Designed embedded communication systems
Education
Cornell University
Cornell University
Ph.D., Mathematics (Number Theory)
1999 – 2006
Additional Info
Interests
Cryptography, Sage, MPIR, Number Theory
From James Madison University website:
Dr. Jason W. Martin (Assistant Professor, Mathematics and Statistics) received $49,766 from the Department of Defense to optimize the assembly level code of the GNU Multi-Precision library for the Itanium2 processor architecture.
From Rate My Professor:
Warning: This class is not for the faint of heart and not geared towards non- CS Majors. You will be using SAGE (think python) for homework and projects. Go to every class. Be prepared to spend a significant amount of time doing homework. However, Dr. Martin makes this material interesting and is extremely helpful.