2 TO SERVE TIME IN OD DEATH

Teens Failed To Call '1 -- Then Dumped Friend's Body

WEST JORDAN -- Two teenagers who dumped the body of their friend near
the Point of the Mountain after he fatally overdosed on drugs were
sentenced to jail and juvenile detention Wednesday. Zachary Tyler
Martinez Zachary Tyler Martinez, 18, died of a drug overdose
March 11, 2005. Rather than call for help when Martinez appeared to
be in trouble or even after he died, the teens dumped his body at the
Salt Lake County Hang-Gliding Park. Wednesday, two boys, now aged 17
and 18, were sentenced in juvenile court for their roles in the crime.

The Deseret Morning News does not print the names of people charged
in juvenile court. The younger boy, who was 15 at the time of the
incident and was the one prosecutors said talked the others out of
calling 911, was given a maximum possible sentence of 30 days in
juvenile detention, 125 hours of community service, fined $2,250 and
placed on probation.

"You were the one who made the decisions in this case," said 3rd
District Juvenile Court Judge Christine S. Decker. The other boy,
despite being 17 at the time of the incident, was sentenced to 14
days at the Salt Lake County Jail in addition to being ordered to
serve 50 hours of community service and pay a $750 fine. "Given what
happened, you need to spend two weeks in jail as an adult," Decker
said. The sentences came just one day after Macall Aubrey Petersen
was sentenced to up to five years in prison for dumping the body of
her friend, Amelia Sorich, after she died from a drug overdose.

Martinez's parents, however, were unsatisfied with the sentences. "I
felt they got off easy," said Zach's mother, Georgia Martinez. "I
don't think they're really going to learn from it. I don't think 30
days will get them off drugs." The Martinez family believes the boys
should have been charged with murder and the parents who were in the
home at the time of the party should have also been charged.

"I am completely baffled by the the actions from the district
attorney," Mike Martinez, Zach's father, said in court. "It's
mystifying the lack of outrage and concern for justice. . . . It's a
slap in our faces.

Overdoses have become Salt Lake County's throw-away children."
Martinez used words such as "callous," "heinous" and "cold-blooded"
to describe the actions of the 17-year-old boy. "These kids have
shown no remorse at all for the life of my son," he said. Even though
the boys received the maximum possible sentences, Martinez said it
was nothing. "I lost my son. That's what the maximum is," he said.
"It's next to nothing what these kids will get considering what we
have lost." Before being sentenced, each boy addressed the Martinez
family with awkward apologies. "I miss Zach every single day," the
younger boy said. "I made a mistake.

I have to live with that every single day of my life. I miss Zach
more than you would believe. . . . I hope you can forgive me. I'm
very, very, truly sorry." But outside the courtroom, Georgia Martinez
said the body language of the boys, who showed nearly no emotion
during the hearing, said it all. "I don't think they were truly
remorseful," she said. Still, Martinez said she forgives the boys.

"I'll never understand why you boys thought your lives were so
important you let a friend die," she told them during an emotional
address to the boys in court. "I feel you treated Zach with no
respect at all. "This is one of the hardest things I'll ever have to
do. . . . I forgive you because that's what Zach would have wanted me
to do. I forgive you but I will never forget," she said. Martinez,
the two defendants and two others were partying at the 17-year-old
boy's house after school.

The group was snorting heroin, smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol
in the basement, according to prosecutors. Upstairs, the 17-year-old
boy's parents were home as were two 10-year-old girls. Decker called
the entire incident a "tragedy" and said it was "surreal" to think of
high school aged kids indulging in drugs as an afterschool pastime.
"What you did was callous," she told the boys during sentencing.
"What you were trying to do was save your own skins."