Louisville mother says she unknowingly kept son's killer, who died after being shot by police, under her roof

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A Louisville mother said her son's killer was living in her house, and it was her call to police that led to a deadly confrontation with officers last week.

Melissa Flores buried her son, 18-year-old David Martinez, on Thursday.

"Yesterday was his birthday," Flores said Friday. "David's birthday, May 23."

She said her son had befriended a 17-year-old who wound up living with her and her son. She knew him only by his nickname, "Stack," and that he was from Guatemala.

"He was a friend, he was like a brother," she said.

Flores said her son's life was turning around. He was working full time and had a serious girlfriend.

"And he had told him (Stack) well, I have a baby on the way, I'm going to get an apartment and I'm going to move out and you can't come with me, and you have to move out of here," she said.

Since then, Flores said something changed between the two, but there was never any fighting or guns, just a change and not for the better.

Then, she got the phone call that her son had been shot to death. She said Stack admitted to being the last person to see him, and that he had heard the gunshots that killed David.

"And I was like, why didn't you go back? And he said 'because I have a warrant,'" Flores said. "I said what does it matter? You left my son there to die."

She said she asked Stack to move out, but he stayed, and as she would later find out, he was the person suspected of killing her son

"Still stayed here after he shot him," she said.

Flores told police she thought Stack might have been involved in her son's murder, and police had the same suspicions.

"We didn't want to let him know we knew something was up, and so when he kept asking questions if we knew anything and this or that," she said.

On May 14, she told Louisville Metro Police Stack was in her house with a gun, and within minutes she was outside as police chased the teen down the street.

Detectives were in the area of South Third and West Kenton streets around 3 p.m. that day, conducting surveillance as part of a recent homicide investigation. LMPD Deputy Chief Col. Steven Healey said the detectives were waiting outside a corner store, and rushed after the 17-year-old suspect who police said pulled out a gun and began running.

He only got a few steps down the sidewalk before several officers had the suspect on the ground, lying on his side. But while at least three officers held him pinned to ground, the suspect's arm was pinned beneath him, and he was still holding the gun, Healey said.

Body camera footage of the incident was released Friday. After repeatedly pleading for him to release the gun, one pop is heard, which Healey said was the suspect shooting behind him toward a police K-9 and his handler. Detective Benjamin Derby, who has been on the force since February 2022, immediately fired from point-blank range, hitting the suspect in the back of the head.

Larry Bradford, who lives across the street from the scene and recorded it on his cellphone, said police did everything they could to avoid using deadly force.

"They even tried to get him to stop," Bradford said Friday. "I don't know, somehow, when he was on the ground over there, the gun went off. So they had to shoot him, I guess, or he would have shot them."

And Bradford said, after the shots were fired, police tried to save the suspect's life, but he died at the hospital eight days later, on May 22.

"I was starting to doubt myself. What if it wasn't him? Ya know, did I just get someone shot," said Flores.

With the shot that killed the 17-year-old, so went the answers Flores needed in her son's death.

"No, not really," Flores said when asked if she sees Stack's death as justice for her son. "Because we don't have answers. That is what we want and what we need."

Police have not yet released the real identity of the 17-year-old.

Healey said the gun the suspect was holding was determined through testing to have been used in the homicide of 18-year-old David Martinez near the railroad tracks near Allmond and Louisville avenues in the Highland Park neighborhood.

LMPD arrested a second suspect — 19-year-old Julian Oyaro — on drug charges after the shooting. Oyaro is charged with trafficking fentanyl and heroin, tampering with evidence, fleeing from police, and possession of marijuana.

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