Man arrested for killing 61-year-old man in ambush robbery outside Miami nightclub
MIAMI — A man was arrested late last month for allegedly killing a 61-year-old man in an ambush robbery outside of a Miami nightclub back in January.
On Saturday, the City of Miami Police announced that its Homicide Unit had arrested 44-year-old Nathaniel Martin, who they stated was a suspect in the "ambush armed robbery" of Wilfredo Artiles shortly after midnight on January 25.
According to the arrest affidavit, Miami Police responded to a ShotSpotter alert at the Studio 60 nightclub on 2300 Northwest 36th Street in Allapattah around 12:24 a.m. Upon arrival, officers found a man -- later identified as Artiles -- inside of his car, slumped over in the driver's seat and suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Miami Fire Rescue responded shortly after to perform life-saving measures. Artiles was then transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he died around 1:55 a.m. The medical examiner then stated that Artiles died from multiple gunshot wounds, including one to the head, and ruled his death as a homicide.
Later at 3 a.m., officers returned to the scene to continue their investigation and contacted Artiles' cousin, who was one of the managers of Studio 60. According to the affidavit, the victim's cousin came to the nightclub around 4 p.m. to monitor a handyman who was renovating the establishment and waited for him to finish his work so he could lock up after Artiles' arrival around 8 p.m., so that he could relieve him of his responsibilities and finish locking up the club.
After reviewing the club's surveillance video, Martin was seen wearing dark clothing and sitting on a bus bench in front of Studio 60 before Artiles and the handyman left the club around 12:22 a.m. As the handyman entered his vehicle and drove off, Artiles then entered his car, exited the parking lot and parked his vehicle on Northwest 23rd Avenue, facing southbound and directly outside of the parking lot's gate. It was at this moment that Martin then approached Artiles, pulled out a gun and shot him, before opening the driver's side door and rummaged through the car, grabbing the car keys and Artiles' cellphone. According to the affidavit, the video also showed Martin wiping his fingerprints off Artiles' car before running away.
Despite Martin's efforts, Miami Police CSI personnel was able to recover a latent fingerprint from outside the driver's side door that was consistent to where Martin had touched the door as shown in the security video. Further fingerprint analysis was able to confirm that the prints did match with Martin's fingerprints and that his pictures and other biological information matched as well.
Four days later, police then canvassed the area surrounding Studio 60 for other sources of surveillance video to determine Martin's escape route. After locating over 10 different cameras, officers were able to determine that after leaving the scene, Martin ran toward a nearby school before somehow losing his phone in the area when he heard sirens and then ran into the parking lot of an auto sales store and hid between two vehicles, before lighting what appeared to be a cigarette while hiding.
Then on January 31, Miami Police received information from Miami Gardens Police and the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office about Martin's Facebook page, allowing officers to further connect and confirm his identity with that the man they saw in security video. On February 13, Miami Police then drafted and served a warrant to Facebook to obtain the IP address of Martin's account to find him.
On February 25, Martin was arrested by Miami Gardens Police for unrelated charges. Miami Police officers then arrived at MGPD's offices to interrogate him.
According to the affidavit, Martin was able to confirm his identity in almost all the of surveillance video shown to him by officers and describe in detail what was happening that night before the murder. However, once he was shown the clip where he was seen shooting Artiles, he denied that he was the same person in the video, despite timestamps between clips suggesting otherwise. When he was asked later why he hid from police after the shooting, Martin told officers that he was hiding himself to smoke marijuana, which was consistent with the last video that showed him hiding between vehicles to smoke.
Martin is currently being held at Metro West Detention Center.
