Death penalty sought in mini-mart murder case

October 25, 2007
Mike Sakal,
East Valley Tribune (Phoenix, Arizona, USA)

For the last five months, the life of Chandler resident Paul Ea has been dramatically different than the life he led as a happily married man.

After he gets up in the morning to go to his technician’s job at General Dynamics in Scottsdale, it is he who now sees their daughter, Alisa, 9, off to school. It is no longer necessary for Ea to go the mini-mart convenience store inside an east Phoenix apartment complex to help his wife, Nisay Kang, stock the shelves and run the store the couple owned for a short time this year.

Last May, Nisay Kang, 36, was beaten and stabbed to death at that store.

Ea, 37, also said he sometimes has trouble sleeping at night. He has put off a job promotion offer as he prepares to follow the trial of an unemployed 20-year-old man accused of murdering Kang the morning of May 25 at the complex at 815 N. 52nd St.

Jesus Arturo Martinez, a former resident of the complex whom the couple knew and often gave merchandise to when he couldn’t pay, is accused of killing Kang. He has pleaded innocent to first-degree murder, third-degree burglary, robbery and kidnapping.

Maricopa County prosecutors are pushing for the death penalty for Martinez. Both defense and prosecuting attorneys are due to submit a joint report on the case to Judge Silvia Arellano on Oct. 31. A hearing on the report, which involves a proposed trial date required to be scheduled before Dec. 11, will be held before the judge on Nov. 2.

“I want to see Jesus Martinez get the death penalty,” Ea said. “That (expletive). He didn’t have to do what he did. He could have taken her purse without killing her, that wouldn’t have mattered.”

AGGRAVATING FACTORS

County prosecutors plan to show aggravating factors in the case such as the heinous manner of the crimes, Martinez’s prior felony convictions including marijuana possession in 2005, and that he had planned to monetarily benefit from robbing Kang’s store, according to a county court document.

Martinez told Phoenix police he “was drugged up” and went into the store to “take her money,” according to a Phoenix police report. Martinez admitted to stabbing Kang with a pair of scissors after beating her with his fists inside the mini-mart at the 768-unit complex near the Scottsdale-Tempe border as Kang was preparing to open the store, according to the Phoenix police report.

Kang died of sharp and blunt force trauma to the head and neck, according to the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office.

“I saw the wall where he smashed her head,” Ea said. “I never hit anyone that hard in my life.”

When police executed a search warrant inside the apartment where Martinez was staying with friends at the complex, they found Kang’s purse and a pair of bloody scissors inside of it, according to the police report.

Police also seized Martinez’s blood-stained clothes and $498 in blood-stained currency that included one $100 bill, four $50 bills, eight $20 bills, one $5 bill and 33 $1 bills, the report said.

DRUG USE ASSERTED

John Canby, a Maricopa County legal defender representing Martinez, told the Tribune that Martinez is not denying the accusations against him.

However, Canby said that by being a capital case, its trial likely will not begin until December 2008 because of the backlog of capital cases in the county court system.

Currently 132 death-penalty cases are pending in the Maricopa County Superior Court to date, according to court records.

County prosecutors have not made a plea offer to Martinez, according to Canby.

“My client was under the influence of cocaine at the time of the incident, but he realizes that’s not any excuse for what he did,” Canby said.

“He’s taking full responsibility for what happened, and we think that can be done without the death penalty.”

A witness told police he saw Martinez hurriedly leaving the gated swimming pool area behind the store that morning, carrying a purse, and when Martinez saw the man, he slowed down and waved to him, the report read.

Moments later, the witness found Kang’s body inside the store after a woman trying to get inside alerted him that something might be wrong because candy racks were blocking its doors, according to the report.

Martinez was indicted on the charges by a county grand jury in June. He is being held in the Maricopa County Fourth Avenue Jail without bond.

100-DAY CEREMONY

Ea and Kang, who were married for 11 years, had emigrated to the United States from Battambang, Cambodia, the second largest city in that country. Paul Ea’s and Nisay Kang’s fathers both died during the violent Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s, and the couple was seeking a better life. Kang was fulfilling her dream of running her own business so they could be better off in their golden years. Since his wife’s death, Ea has sold the store and it was re-opened early last month.

“I just wanted to get rid of it,” Ea said. “I sold it for about half of what we paid for it. She was so happy to be there and loved to talk to all the customers.”

Ea recently returned from a trip to Cambodia with Alisa and Nisay’s mother where about 300 family members and friends honored Kang with a Sept. 1 ceremony marking 100 days since her death. The Buddhist ceremony is held so the departed person’s spirit can move on. Gifts of food, money and clothing were donated so Nisay can have a reward in death, Ea said.

“That was what hurt me the most,” Ea said of the ceremony and returning to Cambodia where his family vacationed last year. “It is time for her spirit to move on. Before that, I always felt that she was around me. It was hard to face Nisay’s family. They had a lot of questions about her death. I lost 10 pounds the first week I was there. The trip started out bad, but it got better.”

Ea said Alisa, a fourth grader, is getting all Bs in school, and receiving some counseling to help her deal with the grief of her mother being gone.

“She misses her mom, and it shows up from time to time,” Ea said. “I think of Nisay every day. I loved her very much and will never forget her.”

Police: Customer confesses to killing [Cambodian-American] store owner

SURVIVORS: Chandler resident Paul Ea speaks of his wife, Nisay Kang, who was slain at her Mini Mart convenience store in Phoenix, while his daughter, Alisa Ea, 8, looks on. The store is in the Peaks at Papago Park apartment complex. (Photo: Tim Hacker, Tribune)

June 1, 2007
Mike Sakal, Tribune
East Valley Tribune (Arizona, USA)

The windows looking into the now-closed Mini Mart convenience store at the Peaks at Papago Park apartment complex are dark.

They are similar to the eyes of Paul and Alisa Ea, the husband and daughter of Nisay Kang, who often worked 14 hours a day at the Phoenix store while fulfilling a dream to operate her own business.

The tight-knit Cambodian family whose members live in Chandler had their plan of growing old together and having the extra money in their golden years brutally shattered one week ago by an unemployed man they knew and often gave merchandise to when he couldn’t pay.

Jesus Arturo-Martinez, 20, who lived in the 768-unit complex, confessed to assaulting and killing Kang with a pair of scissors, according to police. He is being held in Maricopa County’s Fourth Avenue Jail in Phoenix on suspicion of first-degree murder.

“I want this guy on death row,” Paul Ea said. “People like this are the scum of the earth. (Martinez) and his girlfriend would always tell us, ‘You are so nice to us’ — I guess this is how he repays us. Someday I might forgive him — when they put the needle in his arm and he takes his last breath.”

Kang, 36, was killed May 25 inside the store the couple began operating in December at the gated complex near the Tempe-Scottsdale border.

When Ea ends his work days as a technician at General Dynamics in Scottsdale, he no longer will spend afternoons and evenings at the store helping Nisay stock the shelves or wait on customers.

Ea said he never had a problem with Martinez, but he recently noticed when he came into the store his breath smelled of alcohol.

“I would tell my wife I was worried about him, but she said he was just stressed out because he didn’t have a job. I don’t know why he would do this to us.”

When Charles Smihuly, a five-year resident and maintenance worker at the complex, walked into the store to get something to drink about 9 a.m. that day, he told police he discovered Kang’s body lying in a pool of blood on the floor.

“It was horrific,” Smihuly said.

Police said they have a witness who claims he saw Martinez walking out the back of the store with a purse in his hand.

In the family’s home where it’s a custom to remove shoes and sit on the floor out of respect for the quiet and private Cambodian culture, Ea told The Tribune of the love for his wife and his anger against her suspected murderer.

“We had a dream, and that ... tore it apart,” Ea said. “He destroyed my family. My wife worked very hard and did not deserve this. She was always happy, and she was always glad to see everyone from the complex come inside the store and talk with her. I didn’t like to see her work as hard as she did, but she always wanted to help provide for the family. When I would peek at her working inside the store, I saw how happy she was.”

The couple, who celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary in December, bought the business from a friend for $55,000. They were leasing the building from the complex for $1,050 a month.

Kang had previously worked various jobs including as a poker and blackjack dealer at Casino Arizona, but she wanted to run her own business, Ea said.

He spent a lot of his savings and 401(k) retirement funds to buy the business and lease the store. He now plans to talk to the broker about selling it.

Ea, who emigrated to the United States in 1983 when he was 12 years old, said he went back to his homeland in 1996 for about a month to wed Nisay in an arranged marriage by his mother, Sameach, and Nisay’s mother, Charoun Nhoek, who were close friends in Battambang, Cambodia.

Ea’s and Kang’s father died during the violent Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s. Ea said his father was killed by the communists, and Kang’s father died of starvation.

Their children strived for a better life.

Ea said he was friends with a girl in California, but the two mothers urged him to meet Nisay.

“I knew,” he said. “She had a beautiful smile, and she had a little bit of spice to her. We believe her soul is here at home with us.”

Ea said the family has kept Alisa, who just finished third grade, busy playing with cousins to help keep her mind off the tragedy.

Alisa, 8, who liked to shop with her mother and grandmother, wrote 20 things that describe her mother — beautiful, nice, funny, silly and gentle, among others.

Ea often told his wife the only way to love is to keep talking to people. And now, Alisa talks to her mother as if she’s home.

“She’s the greatest mommy in the world,” she said. “I’ll remember her love. She was a nice person.”

Joyce Alvarado, an area resident who was friendly with Kang, often would visit her in the store.

“She taught my daughter how to eat with chopsticks, and Nisay told me I would have to show her how to make enchiladas, but she would say ‘chim-chiladas,’” she said with a chuckle.

“Nisay was a little lady with a fighting spirit,” Ea said. “She was always happy and wanted to work hard to help the family, and she did. She will always be in my heart.”

Funeral services for Nisay Kang:

Noon today at Tempe Mortuary, 405 E. Southern Ave., Tempe. Interment will follow at Paradise Memorial Crematory, 6300 E. Shea Blvd., Scottsdale.

Nisay Kang memorial carwash fundraiser:

8 a.m. June 9 at the Peaks at Papago Park apartment complex, 815 N. 52nd St. (between McDowell Road and Van Buren Street), Phoenix.
Information: (602) 350-3082 or (602) 275-4466.