Left inset: Noel Ledesma (Monterey County Sheriff’s Office). Right inset: Yvette Martinez (KION/YouTube). Background: The area in California where Yvette Martinez’s body was found in the trunk of a burning car after she was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, Noel Ledesma (Google Maps).
An Arizona man strangled his ex-girlfriend in California after his friends started “ridiculing him and laughing at him” for acting desperate by calling and texting her all night, according to prosecutors. The man was ghosted by the 22-year-old woman, who was “largely” ignoring his attempts to reach her.
Noel Ledesma, 44, was convicted this week of first-degree murder after killing Yvette Martinez in 2010, according to a Monterey County District Attorney’s Office press release. Martinez’s body was found in the trunk of her burning car after Ledesma strangled her to death. He tried unsuccessfully to push the vehicle into a canyon, but it got stuck on a berm, the DA’s office says.
The slaying went unsolved for more than 15 years before authorities were able to link Ledesma, who moved to Arizona, to it in February 2025 after analyzing cellphone data that provided “extremely powerful visual evidence” showing Ledesma’s alibi was false. He had claimed that he was at a family party on the night that Martinez went missing from her home after a night out with friends.
“Analysis showed that Ledesma was at or near Martinez’s home in Greenfield for hours before she arrived home,” the DA’s office says. “It showed Ledesma’s phone was in the same part of Salinas as Martinez’s cell phone when her phone was briefly turned on to send messages to friends pretending to be her. The data also showed that Ledesma was not at the family party at the time Martinez’s vehicle was found burning.”
Before Martinez was killed, she had spent the day “out with friends and her then-boyfriend,” according to prosecutors. She went out drinking in Salinas, then went to a corn maze with her boyfriend, met up with a friend at a Salinas restaurant, and headed home.
“Throughout the night, Ledesma was calling and texting Martinez’s cell phone, but she largely ignored his texts and calls,” the DA’s office says, noting how Ledesma “attempted to persuade Martinez to get back together with him” for months, but she refused.
“As the night progressed, Ledesma became angrier that Martinez was not responding to him,” the office says. “He told her that his friends were ridiculing him and laughing at him.”
Ledesma went to Martinez’s home in Greenfield a little after midnight and waited there for hours until she arrived at the residence around 3:11 a.m., according to prosecutors. “Martinez arrived back at her home but did not make it inside,” the DA’s office says. “She was never seen alive again.”
Martinez’s car and body were found the next evening “burning on the side of Highway 198, a few miles from Priest Valley Road,” according to prosecutors. An autopsy determined that she had died of strangulation.
“Her body was so badly burned that she had to be identified by her dental records,” the DA’s office says. “Monterey County Sheriff’s Office detectives suspected Ledesma was the killer due to suspicious behavior he exhibited in the days following her death, his history of domestic violence against other partners, and the content of his text messages with Martinez that night.”
Ledesma was questioned by police in 2010 and claimed he was home the day she disappeared and was at a family party when the car fire was set. His brother “vouched for his alibi,” and investigators were unable to disprove it, the DA’s office notes.
Martinez’s case was examined again in 2024 by the office’s Cold Case Task Force and experts were brought in to analyze the phone data, which led to Ledesma being charged in February 2025 with Martinez’s murder.
A Monterey County jury found Ledesma guilty on Tuesday. He’s due to be sentenced next month on March 12, with prosecutors saying he will receive a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
