Spc. Nicholas Lowery is charged with murder and obstructing justice in the death of Sgt. Alfredo Martinez on the morning of Aug. 27, 2023, according to court records. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
FORT HOOD, Texas — A Fort Hood jury must decide whether Spc. Nicholas Lowery shot and killed his sergeant during a night of heavy drinking, or whether his confession of doing so was coerced, as his attorney argued in court Tuesday.
Lowery is charged with murder and obstructing justice in the death of Sgt. Alfredo Martinez, 30, on the morning of Aug. 27, 2023, according to court records. He pleaded not guilty, and his court-martial before a panel of enlisted jurors began Tuesday.
Capt. Michael Green, Lowery’s attorney, said that Martinez shot himself, which is what Lowery and fellow soldier Spc. Rene Heber told emergency responders who were called to the on-post home at about 8:04 a.m.
The scene that morning was chaotic, and Martinez was still breathing when emergency responders arrived. He died at a hospital about 9:30 a.m., said Capt. Eric Fenton, the prosecutor.
In the rush to save Martinez, items in the living room where the shooting occurred were moved all around, he said.
As attorneys presented their cases to the jury of eight men, several members of Martinez’s family and his friends sat in the crowded courtroom in the Finkelstein Judicial Center. Each wore black shirts with his photo on the back. Written above the photo in Spanish and below in English, the shirts said, “Always in our memories.”
The night began with Martinez drinking wine in his barracks room at Fort Hood, Texas, and playing video games online with friends, according to information presented in court Tuesday. Lowery invited Martinez to his home. Lowery’s wife and Heber were the only other people at the home during the night.
As the soldiers drank heavily, they played games and roughhoused, according to information presented in court. They also played with guns and took photos with them.
Though the defense described Martinez as going through a breakup, the prosecution presented evidence he had dropped one of the two women he was seeing romantically at the airport days before his death and was on good terms with her. They had spoken earlier that night.
Both agreed he had recently been charged with drunken driving.
In a post to the social media app Snapchat, Martinez could still be seen alive, though passed out, at about 7:40 a.m., Fenton said. An autopsy would later show his blood alcohol level was .152, according to information presented in court.
In the days following the shooting, initial evidence led investigators to question Lowery’s and Heber’s stories. Both were called in for questioning Sept. 6, 2023.
During the interrogation, Special Agent Bryce Dunn described to Lowery facts agents had uncovered, which made the soldier question his own memory, Green said. Dunn could not yet have known the information, Green said.
“He believed Special Agent Dunn in fact knew and that his memory must be wrong,” he said. “You’re going to get to experience what 11 hours feels like when we watch that video in the courtroom.”
Green argued that CID agents had already created their own narrative and were looking for evidence to support Lowery’s guilt instead of finding the truth.
Fenton told jurors that it was the evidence that led to Lowery, describing they would hear directly from first responders to the shooting, medical experts and crime scene investigators. They’ll also watch videos of Lowery describing his own actions.
“In that interview, the accused says, ‘I shot Sgt. Martinez in the head. I tried to cover it up as a suicide. And when I told you it was a suicide, I was lying,’ ” Fenton said. “That’s not all he does. He does a walkthrough. You’ll see the accused, and he’s going to tell you where Sgt. Martinez was standing in that room.”
Up to 50 witnesses could testify in the court-martial, which is scheduled to continue through this week with military judge Col. Gregory Batdorff.
Heber will face his own court martial in April for charges of accessory to murder after the fact, accessory to manslaughter after the fact and obstructing justice.
During his concurrent interrogation with CID agents, investigators told him Lowery confessed. Heber quickly responded that he didn’t know why Lowery would say that, Green said.
All three of the soldiers were assigned to the 553rd Division Sustainment Support Battalion within the 1st Cavalry Division Sustainment Brigade.
