Tyler James Martin was a ticking time bomb in his passionate relationship with his former girlfriend, Amber Kathleen Cremeens, those who knew them both said Wednesday.
Martin, 36, allegedly ran Cremeens, 34, off Wadsworth Boulevard on Tuesday night and then shot her to death.
Wheat Ridge police were still looking for him Wednesday night.
The couple’s stormy relationship goes back years.
“He was a dark, dark person,” said David Hirnei, who rented a house to Cremeens in Kansas City from 2001 to 2004. “They had trouble all the time.”
Martin had moved to the Kansas City area from Chicago to be with her, but she eventually moved out to get away from him, Hirnei said. Then Hirnei had to have Martin evicted when he wouldn’t pay the rent.
“He was totally fixated on her,” Hirnei said. “I’m not surprised that something happened, but it never occurred to me he would do something like this.”
A man who did not want his name released told 9News that he stopped to help Tuesday when he saw Cremeens crash into a fence, then witnessed the shooting.
“He was very nonchalant about it,” he said of the gunman. “. . . He had tunnel vision. He had an agenda. He was out to kill this person.”
Cremeens had lived in at least three locations in Arvada and Denver over the past year, and she moved frequently in Kansas City as well, public records showed.
Wheat Ridge police said that after the slaying, Martin went to his house to retrieve his dog and cat and then vanished.
“He was bitter,” said Chris Black, 25, a neighbor who occasionally drank beer and played video games with Martin at his home at 1355 Osceola St.
“He got pissed off because he changed his life and moved to Colorado from Chicago just to marry her and then she dumped him.”
Wheat Ridge police spokeswoman Lisa Stigall said Cremeens made a panicked call to her current boyfriend about 10 p.m. Tuesday telling him her ex-boyfriend was trying to run her off the road near West 44th Avenue and Wads worth Boulevard.
He called 911, and police found Cremeens’ body on the west side of Wadsworth Boulevard near West 35th Avenue in the driver’s seat of a Dodge Caliber.
“The sad thing is we were so close,” Stigall said. “Thirty seconds’ difference would have made a world of difference. It’s just a shame.”
When police arrived, they spoke with the motorist who had stopped at the scene. He told police he was behind the woman when she crashed into the fence and that he had gotten out of his car to see whether he could help when another man climbed out of a dark sedan.
“He watched the suspect get out and just shoot her,” Stigall said.
Martin is described as 6 feet tall, weighing 250 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes. He might be driving a dark-green 1998 Mercury Mystique with license plate 720-SXA.
Neighbors said Martin lived in a small gray home he rented about six months ago after his girlfriend broke up with him. He wouldn’t leave his home for weeks at a time, Black said.
Joseph Fernandez, 68, who lives next door to Martin, said he would sometimes see Martin leave his house late at night. He would scold Fernandez’s dog for yelping at him.
“I guess he didn’t want anybody to know he was there,” he said. “He was very strange. Who would imagine that your neighbor would go on a rampage and kill someone?”
His daughter, Darlene Garcia, 46, overheard Martin say last week that he was finally going to get to see the former girlfriend. “He was real excited about that,” she said.
Black said Martin was a nice guy who said he made a living from computers, but he never explained exactly how. Whenever Black went to Martin’s house, he was playing video games. He played poker or went to a bar on rare occasions and would watch Ultimate Fighting bouts on TV, Black said.
“He was like one of those guys who would get a new video every week in the mail, play it for about a week and then get rid of it,” he said.
Martin — who had two cars, including a limited-edition Mustang he kept in his garage — told people he got an inheritance when his father died. He had a Vulcan 1500 Kawasaki motorcycle and other high-tech toys in his house.
“He never seemed to be hurting for money,” Black said.
Martin’s dog, Dewey, is a half-blind, white Jack Russell terrier with a weak, scratchy bark. The dog had been his late father’s.
