A Maryland parole officer was found dead in a Chevy Chase apartment while conducting a welfare check on a registered sex offender, police say. The deceased officer, identified as 33-year-old Davis Martinez, was checking on 54-year-old Emanuel Edward Sewell but never returned to work, prompting his colleagues to search for him; they discovered his state-issued vehicle parked outside and his body inside Sewell's apartment, NBC24 reported.
According to Montgomery County Police Department Chief Marcus Jones, Martinez suffered "multiple injuries, a blunt force trauma to the head" and the case was ruled a homicide. Sewell was not at the scene at the time of the discovery, and he had taken Martinez's police badge with him, which led authorities to initiate an urgent manhunt, and a warrant for his arrest for second-degree murder was issued WJLA.
The suspect was arrested Saturday evening in West Virginia by the U.S. Marshals Task Force on a traffic stop on I-64 near Hurricane, nearly six hours away from the site of the murder, the NBC Washington states. Maryland Governor Wes Moore has expressed his condolences, stating "Agent Martinez served with distinction and our state is safer because of him—our entire state grieve his loss along with those he held dear," and expressed gratitude towards law enforcement for their rigorous pursuit of the suspect.
Per Secretary Carolyn J. Scruggs of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, Martinez had visited Sewell’s home multiple times during his parole, highlighting that Sewell had not shown to pose a significant risk before this incident, "This individual had not shown to pose a risk prior," Scruggs stated, "We are doing a complete risk assessment right now to determine whether there were any hiccups, any challenges, any concerns" and distribution of the full investigation results is pledged once completed, as obtained by WJLA.
Sewell faces second-degree murder charges and will be extradited to Montgomery County, confirmed by MCPD. Martinez, who was a six-year veteran of Maryland's Department of Public Safety & Correctional Services and based in the Silver Spring field office, is remembered as a professional, diligent and resilient agent, the essence of a community-servant whose heroism often escapes public recognition, WJLA reported.
