Brooklyn Man Confesses To Murder, Dismembering Wife With Handsaw And Hammer

A 42-year-old Brooklyn man has been charged in the murder of his wife after allegedly confessing to killing her, authorities say. The man said he had dismembered the body, chopping his wife up before depositing the various parts in a Flatbush dumpster. The woman’s remains have yet to be recovered.

New York Police Department (NYPD) investigators say Philip Martin was arrested Thursday, CBS New York reported, following an investigation into the whereabouts of his wife, Diana Rodriguez-Martin, 43, who went missing earlier in the month. Authorities became suspicious with Philip Martin’s inconsistent answers to their questions, a source told CBS New York. The source said police later learned that the man was using his wife’s credit cards since she had gone missing. Martin was charged Friday with murder and concealment of the corpse of his wife.

The Daily Mail reported that Diana Rodriguez-Martin was found to be missing only after family members became concerned for her safety when she did not show up for a doctor’s appointment on February 8. In questioning her husband, sources said, he told police that his wife had packed a bag, then left with the family dog sometime around January 16. Martin told authorities he had not heard from her since she left.

During questioning Thursday, police discovered inconsistencies in Martin’s story. When pressed for clarification, the man confessed to his wife’s murder, allegedly telling police he had killed her when he struck her in the throat. His motive for allegedly striking his wife was not disclosed.

Martin then allegedly dismembered his wife’s body a few days later, the sources said, according to CBS New York. It is as yet unclear why he waited, but Martin allegedly took a handsaw and hammer to the corpse, throwing the dismembered remains into a Brooklyn dumpster.

Authorities say the couple had a long history of domestic issues where police were involved. According to the New York Daily News, police responded to complaints of domestic violence at the couples’ home eight times in recent years. Sources said Martin had two prior arrests for assaulting his wife in 2013 and 2016. The wife was arrested twice for attacking her husband as well.

The investigation into Diana Rodriguez-Martin’ remains is ongoing. NYPD officers were at the Martin home Friday night, NBC New York reported, and were seen carrying boxes of evidence from the residence.

“I always hear them fighting, cursing each other out, using profanity a lot,” said Denise Cork, who told NBC New York she had heard the couple fighting in the past. “But I never thought it would get to a point, you know, to what it is now.”

Cork, who spoke also with WABC-TV, said, “I remember the last time I seen them they was fighting they had police up and down. I would hear them arguing all the time, like, ‘I’ll kill you, I’ll F-you up,’ always cursing and fighting, so I’m kind of shocked.”

The Diana Rodriquez-Martin case is the second dismemberment incident in Brooklyn in the past few weeks.

NYPD investigators were called to the Metropolitan Transfer Station, a refuse facility, in the Bronx in mid-January, according to the Inquisitr, when a worker dropping off a load of trash noticed the partial remains of a human body — a torso and a leg without a foot — amid the garbage. It was determined that the remains were female.

Subsequent searches recovered body parts in New Jersey and the head, hands, and feet in a freezer in the Flatbush, Brooklyn, apartment of a man that police would discover was the woman’s boyfriend.

The Daily Mail reported that Somorie Moses, 40, was arrested and charged with the concealment of a human corpse and tampering with evidence. The remains found in the man’s freezer were identified by relatives of the victim as that of Moses’ girlfriend, 32-year-old Leondra Foster.

Moses, a convicted sex offender, had been arrested eight times, his record indicates. The charges ranged from rape to patronizing a prostitute.

Kenneth Foster, the father of the victim, told the New York Post that his daughter had been the subject of months of domestic abuse prior to her death.

[Featured Image by Spencer Platt/Getty Images]