Threats on Victim’s Life Told : Murder: A man wearing an electronic bracelet to enforce a house arrest allegedly told his estranged wife that he would kill her.

A Harbor City man wearing an electronic surveillance bracelet meant to ensure his compliance with house arrest had threatened his estranged wife’s life at least twice in the days before he fled from his home and allegedly shot her to death, the victim’s mother and a witness said Tuesday.

But they said the alleged threats were not reported to police, apparently because the victim believed that she was safe as long as her husband was wearing the electronic bracelet.

The mother, Carol Tweedt, and the witness, April Wood, told of the threats in interviews Tuesday--a few hours after Steve Moon Martinez, 26, surrendered to sheriff’s deputies and was booked on suspicion of murdering his 27-year-old wife, Nikki. He was held without bail pending arraignment on Oct. 27.

Martinez had been sentenced to 90 days of house arrest after pleading no contest on July 27 to a misdemeanor charge of firing a gun into the air. Prosecutors said he was given an alternative to jail because police, prosecutors and the judge did not believe that he posed a threat to anyone.

“There was no indication he would go out and shoot his wife,” said Long Beach City Prosecutor John VanderLans. “There was nothing like that.”

Police and sheriff’s deputies said they had not received any reports of the alleged threats that Tweedt and Wood described as part of a bitter divorce and child custody dispute.

Tweedt said Martinez’s electronic bracelet had given her daughter “a false sense of security” and she believed that he could not leave the home while wearing it.

But officials said the bracelet does not track the detainee once he leaves home. When the device detects an unauthorized departure, officials said, there is a procedural delay before police are notified.

In the Martinez case, the officials said the court was not notified until Monday morning--about 36 hours after he fled from his home and about 32 hours after the slaying. There was a further delay while the court issued a warrant that was relayed to police.

Wood said she was sitting beside Nikki Martinez when she was shot to death at 1:25 a.m. Sunday in front of a house in Carson, about four miles from her husband’s home. Wood said the woman had hold her that Steve Martinez threatened about two weeks ago “that he would kill her” if she left their home in Harbor City and moved in with a roommate.

Tweedt said Martinez allegedly threatened his wife last week after she had ignored his warning not to move out of the home the couple had been sharing with his mother, Margaret Gomez, in Harbor City. It was the same home where Steve Martinez was under house arrest.

Nikki Martinez had taken the couple’s 3-year-old son, Raymond, with her when she moved out, Tweedt said, but she left the child with Gomez during the day while she worked.

“One day, he refused to give the baby back, so we went to court and filed for temporary custody (of the child) and for divorce,” Tweedt said.

On Sept. 30, Tweedt said, Nikki Martinez told her husband about the filing and he allegedly responded, “They’re going to be carrying dead bodies out of here if you come and take my son.”

Nonetheless, Tweedt and her daughter showed up the next day at the home in Harbor City to claim the boy and were confronted by Martinez. “He told us, ‘You’re not going to take my son,’ ” Tweedt said. “He said, ‘I’ll die over this; you’re not going to take my son.’ ”

Tweedt said that as she and her daughter started to walk away, Steve Martinez suddenly changed his mind and said, “Come and get him.” Tweedt said that after a few more minutes of heated conversation, she and her daughter drove off with Raymond.

Tweedt said that because of the electronic bracelet, Nikki Martinez felt protected from her husband.

“We thought she was safe until Oct. 17 (when the sentence ended),” Tweedt said. “Then we were going to get her out of the area.”

Deputies say that sometime late Saturday or early Sunday, Martinez drove his pickup truck to Albreda and Martin streets in Carson.

Wood said that Nikki Martinez spotted the truck as she dropped off Wood at her home about 1:15 a.m. Sunday.

‘ “She said, ‘I’m scared, April,’ ” Wood recounted. “She said, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ ” Martinez’s was in the back seat.

Wood said Steve Martinez walked up to the car and asked, “What are you doing with my son, out so late?”

Wood said that as Nikki begged, “No! Don’t!” Steve Martinez pulled a handgun from his waistband and fired three shots at his wife. Nikki Martinez was fatally wounded, but her son and Wood escaped injury.

“I just leaned against her and shut my eyes and waited till he left,” said Wood. “I played like I was dead, too.”

Long Beach Municipal Judge William T. Garner had sentenced Martinez to wear an ankle bracelet after an incident June 17 involving shots fired in a residential neighborhood in Long Beach. Officers said they found a firearm in the home where the Martinezes were then living, and Steve Martinez was arrested nearby with another firearm in his possession.

The arrest involved shots fired into the air, VanderLans said, but “it had nothing to do with his wife.”

Martinez was booked on misdemeanor counts of suspicion of discharging a firearm in public and receiving/buying stolen property, but the stolen property count was dropped.

The prosecutors said that with the current crowding in local jails, they did not oppose defense attorney Nancy Phillips’ request that Martinez be sentenced to house arrest.

“I reviewed the file, and there’s nothing in there about his being a danger to anyone,” said Assistant City Prosecutor Steve Shaw.

Judge Garner said Monday that he could not comment on the case or the sentence because the matter is ongoing and “I may have this man back before me. . . .

“In most of these misdemeanor cases, the people aren’t that dangerous, although in this case, it may have turned out that he was,” the judge said.

Officials say the Torrance-based firm assigned to provide monitoring equipment and personnel outfitted Martinez with a transmitter device, about the size of a pack of cigarettes, which was attached to his ankle with a sealed strap. The telephone in his Harbor City home was equipped with a sophisticated receiver.

Like all participants in the program, Martinez was interviewed by the company before being accepted. “We are very careful about screening,” said Phil Smith, president of Electronic Supervision Services.

In addition, Smith said, all participants are required to check in at the office once a week to make sure their bracelets are working properly.

When Martinez strayed more than 150 feet from the receiver last weekend and the signal from the transmitter was lost, the receiver automatically dialed Electronic Supervision Services and notified them he was gone.

“It worked,” company president Smith said. “It worked very well.”

Under the agreement with the court, the company said, it was required to notify authorities as soon as possible. In this case, that would have been when the court opened on Monday.

Times staff writers Howard Blume and Rich Connell contributed to this story.

Electronic Monitoring

Electronic surveillance devices are designed to alert authorities when an offender leaves a defined area. Here’s a general look at the process:

HOW IT WORKS

* The offender wears an ankle bracelet to which a cigarette-pack-sized transmitter is attached; it sends out a constant signal to a receiver linked to a telephone.

* When an offender ventures outside the range of the receiver--often about 150 feet--a call is automatically placed to a computer at a private monitoring agency. (Some probation departments operate their own systems.)

* The monitoring station then alerts a court-appointed agency--often on the next business day--that the offender has left the area.

FACTS AND FIGURES

* Monitoring service: Usually paid for by the offender at a cost of about $8 to $20 per day.

* Device manufacturers: General Electric, Mitsubishi, Cincinnati Microwave, B.I. Incorporated. * Use: More than 300 judges in Los Angeles County have been using surveillance devices since 1985.

* Aim: Usually used as means of punishment for those convicted of crimes such as drunk driving, petty theft and forgery. Not designed as a restraint for dangerous criminals.

Compiled by Times researcher Michael Meyers

SOURCE: Electronic Supervision Services, L.A. County Municipal Courts