Arapahoe County authorities investigating the case of a body found Saturday in a landfill now have a name.
Detectives used fingerprints to identify the body as that of Thomas Henry Martinez, Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said Sunday. Now, Robinson said, comes the difficult task of figuring out what happened to Martinez, a 27-year-old who lived in the metro area.
“We are really working hard to put together Mr. Martinez’s last days of life,” Robinson said.
Saturday morning, an employee at the Waste Management landfill on South Gun Club Road reported seeing the body, partially covered by trash and debris. Because of the body’s condition, Robinson said, investigators were originally unable to determine the age and gender of the deceased.
The body was found in an area most often used by commercial trash trucks. Because of that, Robinson said, detectives believe that the body was first in a large trash bin and then brought to the landfill early Saturday.
Robinson said investigators haven’t determined a cause of death. However, because of the suspicious nature of the death, detectives are treating the case as a homicide.
“We took a great deal of time and caution to process this area so that we could collect any materials and evidence that may have been with Mr. Martinez at his time of death,” Robinson said.
Martinez has a lengthy arrest record in Colorado, most recently having been arrested in August for investigation of a misdemeanor theft charge.
Robinson said Martinez has family in the Denver metro area. Efforts to reach family members Sunday were unsuccessful.
Investigators ask anyone who had contact with Martinez in the last couple months to call the Sheriff’s Office at 303-795-4711 so that detectives can get a better idea of his whereabouts and activities.
“We are trying to piece all those things together so we have a better picture of Mr. Martinez and his life,” Robinson said.
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
