James David Martin (born December 11, 1971) is an American serial killer who strangled three people across three states between 1989 and 2005. While serving a sentence for the murder of his wife in Pennsylvania, he was connected via DNA profiling to a cold case murder in The Bronx, for which he was later given an additional 20 years imprisonment. Early life Little is known about Martin's early life. According to the detectives who interviewed him, when he was about six years old, his mother beat his little sister to death. Following this event, James was sent to live in Fort Meade, Maryland, where he attended Meade Senior High School. While a student there, he was on the basketball team, where he got acquainted with 15-year-old Michael Eugene Thomas, who would later become his first victim. Murders At age 17, Martin was envious that his fellow basketball buddy Thomas had recently bought himself an expensive pair of Air Jordans worth $115.50. On May 2, 1989, James lured Michael into the woods near the school, where he proceeded to sodomize and then strangle him to death. After killing him, he stole the Air Jordans and fled the scene. Not long after, however, he was arrested for the murder, charged with first-degree murder and convicted. The senseless crime for the shoes, which ironically did not even fit Martin, were featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, with professional basketball player Michael Jordan himself expressing his horror at the brutality of the crime. Martin served seven years in prison, before being released in 1996 and moving back to New York City to live with his mother. On February 23, 1998, while walking around the Bronx, Martin came across 14-year-old Marleny Cruz, a Dominican-born adoptee who often went on visits to an aunt in the area. Taking an interest in the beautiful young girl, James asked her out on a date to his mother's apartment, to which she agreed. At some point, however, the pair began arguing, with Martin proceeding to grab her by the throat, beating, sexually abusing and finally, strangling Cruz to death. He then dumped her body on a curb in University Heights, where she was later found by passers-by. Initially, she could not be identified, and it was even presumed that she could have been Chante Smalls, a girl who had recently gone missing, but it was later determined not