Roswell man sentenced to 19 years in prison for deadly 2016 stabbing

A Las Cruces judge sentenced a Roswell man to 19 years in prison on Tuesday for a deadly stabbing from 2016.

In March, a jury found 37-year-old Rodolfo Martinez guilty of second-degree murder for stabbing 46-year-old Christopher Wray two dozen times.

Surveillance video from the stabbing death in July 2016 shows one man choking another in the parking lot of a Western Inn near Picacho Avenue and 17th Street. In the video, the man being choked overcomes his attacker and stabs him two dozen times.

Martinez told the jury he had to stab Wray in self-defense. He said he grabbed a sharp object, which he threw on top of the roof after the stabbing.

“It was just something that happened and shouldn’t have happened, you know?” Martinez told judge Doug Driggers on Tuesday. “I just wished that I could replay everything, you know?”

15 years of the sentence was for second-degree murder and an additional four years was added to his sentence for being a repeat offender.

The victim was a father of five, his sister told Judge Driggers in court.

“There will never be retribution for what this man has done to my family: financially, physically, spiritually, emotionally” said Misty Wray, the victim’s sister. “I plead with you to make sure this man spends every day of the maximum sentence behind bars, so that he never puts another family through what my family has been through.”