FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(New Haven, CT) - Patrick J. Griffin, New Haven State’s Attorney, announced today that Tyhitt Bember, 25, of New Haven has been sentenced to 55 years in prison for the December 28, 2013 homicide in New Haven of Javier Martinez, an 18-year-old student at Common Ground High School in New Haven. Bember was sentenced on March 3, 2022 by the Honorable Elpedio N. Vitale in Superior Court in New Haven.
Following a jury trial in December 2021, Bember was found guilty of Felony Murder, Criminal Attempt to commit Robbery in the First Degree and Carrying a Pistol without a Permit. Evidence from the trial, which took place over six days, detailed that Bember approached the victim with a firearm in an attempt to rob him and subsequently shot the victim. Evidence also showed that Martinez had been shot five times in the back as he attempted to flee from the armed Bember.
During the sentencing hearing on March, 3, 2022, Judge Vitale was addressed by members of Javier Martinez’s family, as well as management and teaching staff from Common Ground High School where Javier Martinez was a student at the time of his death. Judge Vitale noted that “Martinez’s life was violently taken from him” by Bember on December 28, 2013. Investigators from the New Haven Police Department worked for more than five years on the case before Bember was arrested in July 2019.
State’s Attorney Griffin thanked the New Haven Police Department for their work on the investigation and commended the work of Executive Assistant State’s Attorney John P. Doyle, Jr. and Assistant State’s Attorney Melissa R. Holmes, who prosecuted the case.