An Amherst man pleaded guilty Thursday to second-degree attempted murder in the 2020 death of his girlfriend’s mother, according to the Erie County District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said Daniel A. Martinez, 50, pleaded guilty to the reduced charge in full satisfaction of the indictment against him, which had charged him with murder.
At about 2:45 a.m. on Sept. 30, 2020, Martinez intentionally set a fire inside of his girlfriend’s residence on the first floor of a multi-family home on Concord Avenue in Buffalo’s Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood.
The intended victim, Laura Galazka, was not home at the time, but her mother, Maria, was asleep in a bedroom of the apartment they shared. Maria Galazka suffered multiple burns and smoke inhalation and was transported by ambulance to Erie County Medical Center where she died six days later on Nov. 5, 2020, on her 66th birthday.
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A Buffalo firefighter was injured while fighting the fire and was treated at ECMC. A resident who lived in the upper apartment was displaced, but not harmed.
Martinez initially faced two counts of second-degree murder in Galazka’s death, but a State Supreme Court jury in March 2023 acquitted him of one count and deadlocked on the other, which led Justice Paul Wojtaszek to declare a mistrial on the second count.
Prosecutors had charged Martinez under two legal theories: that he acted with depraved indifference to human life, and that he caused Galazka’s death while committing another felony by setting the fire. The jury acquitted him of the depraved indifference murder.
The District Attorney’s Office planned to retry Martinez on the deadlocked murder charge, but accepted a guilty plea to attempted murder.
“The family of Maria Galazka has waited a long time for justice,” acting District Attorney Michael J. Keane said in a statement Thursday. “The plea to a reduced charge was offered with the consent of the victim’s family to bring a resolution to this case to prevent them enduring another trial while ensuring the defendant was convicted of a violent felony for this crime.”
Martinez faces a maximum of 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on Oct. 4. Prosecutors requested that Martinez be remanded pending his sentencing, but he remains released on a previously posted $500,000 bail.