Pleads guilty in Heights man's killing
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Jersey City resident Michael Comacho, AKA "The Sandman," has pleaded guilty to killing an 18-year-old man in November 2002 using his trademark sleeper hold, then dumping the body in the defunct Reservoir No. 3, authorities said yesterday.

Officials said the sleeper hold was Comacho's "preferred method of intimidation," earning him the nickname "The Sandman."

He entered the plea of guilty of manslaughter Friday before Hudson County Superior Court Judge Kevin G. Callahan, said Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Mike D'Andrea, and will be sentenced in early July.

Comacho, who's been in jail since his arrest in January 2003, admitted killing Jesse Martinez, another Jersey City resident, during a dispute.

The plea carries an up to 25-year sentence, and because of the nature of the crime Comacho must serve 85 percent of the sentence before being eligible for parole, D'Andrea said.

The nature of the dispute between Comacho and Martinez has never been fully determined.

What is clear, according to D'Andrea, is that on Nov. 9, 2002, the two argued inside a basement apartment Comacho rented at 86 Prospect Ave. Comacho grabbed Martinez around the neck with his forearm and biceps and literally "squeezed the life out of him," D'Andrea said.



Comacho, who carried out the murder by himself, kept the body in the apartment for a day. Then he bound it, covered it with bedspreads and paper bags, put it in a shopping cart, and wheeled it in