Ex-Boyfriend Convicted Of Killing, Dumping Woman’s Body

A man was convicted of second-degree murder today for beating his ex-girlfriend in her car and dumping her body in a Palm Springs field.

An Indio jury deliberated about a day and a half before convicting Ron Dwayne Martinez, 43, of the March 9, 2007, killing of 43-year-old Palm Springs resident Karyn Kleine, whose partially buried remains were found the following September in a dirt field by a man walking his dog.

Sentencing was set for May 2.

Prosecutors said Martinez beat Kleine then covered her mouth, face and head with duct tape and buried her under a bush, using broken branches to cover the body.

Kleine was reported missing March 11, 2007, by then-boyfriend Patrick Ross when she failed to show up for a lunch date and did not answer her phone.

Kleine’s car was found in the parking lot at the Indio Fashion Mall on Highway 111 and Monroe Street six days after she went missing. Blood droplets and DNA found inside the vehicle led detectives to Martinez, according to police.

Kleine’s skeletal remains were found Sept. 21, 2007, in a field at North Farrell and Tachevah drives, about a mile from her apartment. Duct tape was around the skull, according to prosecutors.

Martinez was arrested in November 2008 in Battle Mountain, Nev., a small community northeast of Reno.

Martinez testified that he struck Kleine during an argument in her car but did not mean to kill her.

He testified that he and Kleine, who had an on-again, off-again relationship and had broken up a few weeks before her death, met at the Spa Resort Casino in Palm Springs the night she was killed and drove to find a place to eat, with Martinez behind the wheel of Kleine’s car. He said they started arguing about money and Kleine’s gambling habit, and Martinez pulled over.

“She lunges forward with both of her arms, closes her hands around my throat and my windpipe started to close,” Martinez said.

He said Kleine pinned him against the driver’s-side door.

“What did you do, Mr. Martinez?” asked his attorney, Thomas Cavanaugh.

“I responded to a life threat … it was bam bam bam, elbows, punches — it happened so fast,” Martinez said.

Under questioning from Cavanaugh, Martinez said he struck Kleine approximately 10 times in the head and shoulder area.

“What were you thinking, if anything, at that point?” Cavanaugh asked.

“This is the enemy, she’s threatening my life,” Martinez said.

He testified that “I saw her motionless, I saw a lot of blood, I saw a lot of blood on her face.”

“At some point, did you believe you had killed her?” Cavanaugh asked.

“Yes I did,” Martinez said.

He said he “drove aimlessly for a time,” eventually stopping at a dirt lot.

“I took the body out of the car, went and laid it under a bush,” he said. “I looked at the face and saw it was very bloody.”

He said he found some duct tape in the car and covered part of her head with it “because it was so gruesome.”

He said he left Kleine’s car at the Indio Fashion Mall, “a spur of the moment thing,” and did not clean it up. He wandered homeless in the Coachella Valley for a time before leaving for Arizona, where he got a job as a truck driver.

“Did you mean to kill Karyn Kleine?” Cavanaugh asked.

“No,” Martinez said.

At the end of his questioning, Cavanaugh asked, “When you were striking her, did you think about killing her?”

“When I was striking her, no,” Martinez replied. “It was just muscle memory taking over, it was coming out very fast, I wasn’t thinking.”

Under questioning from Deputy District Attorney Lisa DiMaria, Martinez said he knew Kleine was on disability for neck and back injuries, and her gambling and conflicts with his children bothered him.

“Were you ever violent with Karyn Kleine before you killed her?” DiMaria asked.

Martinez said he wasn’t.