Stephanie
Martinez
November
16,
1996 - December 31, 2001
Find
A Grave Memorial
On
December 26, 2001,
a woman named
Clenteen Sue
Williams submerged Stephanie Martinez in a
scalding hot tub of water
and
then allowed the burn blisters to become infected
causing Sepsis, which
causes bacteria to grow in the blood of untreated
second and third
degree
burns. Stephanie died five days later.
Clenteen
claims
that she ran warm
bath water into
the tub for Stephanie to take a bath and that she
tested it with her
own
elbow to be sure that it was not to hot. She claims
that she then left
the room and about 15 minutes later heard screaming
and returned to the
bathroom to find Stephanie sitting in scalding hot
water and she then
immediately
took her out and treated her burns with Aloe Veer
and Epsom Salts.
Clenteen
also denies ever beating Stephanie but could not
explain the
bruises
she had on her body, head and face. She claims that
these children
were
always hurting themselves. She had this to say:
"I never beat her on the
head. The little girl
and little boy, they throbbed the
tantrums, they
beat their heads on the
floor and
against
the wall. These children have terrible
problems that
we don't know how to deal
with, I
had the
little girl right here, and here she and her
brother,
they get upset about
something, they
going to throw the tantrum. I said, I'm not
having
these tantrums, so you just
cut it
out. I'm
not having these tantrums and you
being hurtful to your own
self."
An
autopsy performed on Stephanie
showed more than
100 injuries, which her grandmother claimed she gave
to herself.
Clenteen
told police that she was afraid that she would be
charged with child
abuse
if she took Stephanie to the hospital. Clenteen did
admit to hitting
stephanie
with an extension cord on her burned legs and her
bottom on the same
day
that she died.
Unbelievably,
Clenteen
relatives
asked the judge
for mercy claiming that she was only guilty of
taking on the
responsibility
of more children than she could care for.
In
March of 2003, Clenteen was
sentenced to the maximum
term of 48 years in prison.
UPDATE:
January
14, 2015 (Thank
you Cat for this
update)
Cat sent me a link with
some information
about the life of Stephanie as well as information
about Clenteen
asking for early release.
Stephanie had received a
Barb Doll on her
5th birthday, it was said that the Barb looked just
like her.
The abuse that Stephanie
had been
suffering through was no secret to those who knew
her, the problem was
that none of the people who knew about it, could be
bothered to do
anything, they ignored it, they ignore her
suffering, they ignore her.
How sad is that?
Stephanie's mother,
Valerie Mends, had
gone to prison and that is when her life became the
nightmare that she
had to live for the last five months of her life.
Stephanie was whipped
with a belt, a paddle and an electric cord and then
she was left alone
in the closet. During the last few hours of her
life, Stephanie was on
the floor, clenching her teeth and hands and she was
dying from an
infection. Paramedics arrived and after going up the
stairs, they
realized they were too late to save this little
Angel.
Here is some background
information: Sam
Martinez was the father of Stephanie, Valerie had
met him when she was
in high school, he was 11 years older than she was.
Valerie said he was
nice, he was older, he was cool and he had a car,
she said they got
along really well. Valerie said that she wanted to
visit her father one
time and Sam packed up and took her. Valerie's
mother, Maxcine said
that she didn't call home for a week and she thought
it was because she
was afraid to tell her mother that she was pregnant.
Stephanie was said to
have been a good
baby who slept through the night at a very early age
and very rarely
cried:
"She
was maybe two
months old and she could sit and hold her bottle
and watch TV"
Valerie
Mends
When Stephanie was still very young, Valerie and Sam
decided they would
return to Pueblo and on the way, they were stopped in
Arizona for a
traffic violations. Valerie had a warrant for an
aggravated robbery
that had taken place about a year go:
"One
night we went out,
me, Sam and my cousin and Sam's cousin. There was
this
guy, I guess they
didn't like. So they all jumped out of the car and
they were
arguing
and it turned
into a fight"
The arrest warrant said that the cousins told Police
that Valerie had
beaten up two people with a baseball bat and that
someone had stolen a
leather jacket from one of the victims of the assault.
Stephanie and
Sam made it Maxcine's house and then Sam was arrested
on a warrant.
In July of 1997, Valerie plead guilty to a lesser
charge and was sent
to jail for 90 days with four years probation. Before
they went to
jail, Valerie ended up getting pregnant again and
Sammy Jr. was born on
April 1, 1998. Stephanie adored her little brother:
"Stephanie
was so
protective. Nobody could touch him. He was the
only boy
great
grandchild so
everybody wanted to see him. Stephanie would
scream
and
cry and say: Don't
take my brother"
Valerie and Maxcine were able to work out a system
where one of them
was with the children at all times. Valerie said that
she had dreamed
that one of her children died so she didn't want to
put them in daycare
or with anyone other than herself or her mother.
Valerie became involved with a man named David, while
Sam was in
prison. A third child, David, was born in May of 2000,
Valerie was 22
years old at that time. David didn't want anything to
do with his son,
however, his mother, Clenteen Sue Williams was very
involved in his and
Valerie's life:
"We
were inseparable,
basically like two teen age kids. She knew how
hard
it
was for me to take
care of all the kids. She was always there no
matter what,
letting
me know it was
going to be okay, it's going to get easier. She
was kind
of
like another mother.
I loved her a lot"
That relationship is what lead to Stephanie being
Clenteen custody and
her eventual death. Clenteen was prosecuted and
sentenced to prison
time of 48 years. Fast forward to 2012:
In February of 2012
Clenteen Sue Williams
was 61 years old and had served ten years of her
sentence. Deputy
District Attorney Bob Case was reminding a court
that Stephanie had
over 100 injuries to her body when she died at the
hands of Clenteen.
Clenteen had filed a motion for early release saying
her health was
failing, she was on oxygen and needed a wheelchair
to get around,
Clenteen said that her days on Earth were coming to
an end:
"I
have one lung left
and that one's not all that good. My son doesn't
want to hear
it
but
he's here today so he has to. I'm going fast, but
it's Jehovah's will"
Clenteen was still
denying that she hurt
Stephanie:
"I
will go to my grave
telling you the same thing, that I didn't burn
Stephanie in the
bathtub.
I'm
guilty of not getting medical treatment"
Clenteen said that she
blames herself and
will feel guilty until she dies and that she has
taken classes in
prison and that other prisoners, including some who
wrote letters of
support for her to be let out of prison, look up to
her. Clenteen said
that she works in prison as a part time clerk and
just keeps in touch
with her family.
Thankfully District
Judge Jill Mattoon
listened for about two hours and then ruled that
Clenteen would not be
eligible for early release. Clenteen would be
eligible for parole in
2023, let's hope the Parole Board doesn't let her
out.
Death
Occurred
in the
state of Colorado
For
information about how to report child
abuse, please click the link below and you
will be taken to a page that
has an
alphabetical,
state by state listing of how
to report child abuse
for which state you are looking for and
for some other countries.
Visit
my
child abuse
quilt to see
other places
about
preventing
child abuse.
This
page will
open
up in a new
window so you
won't lose
your place
while
visiting
the
Angels on
my site.
   
Call
this
number
to report
child abuse
ANY
WHERE
in
the
United States!
1-800-4-A-Child 
1-800-422-4453
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