Although an autopsy will determine the cause, a law enforcement official told CLIFFVIEWPILOT that 79-year-old former death row inmate John Martini “died much more tranquily than did Irving Flax,” a former business associate kidnapped by Martini and then shot dead after his family paid a ransom in 1989.
PHOTO: Courtesy NJDOC
Martini, who turned 79 in July, was pronounced dead at 2:21 a.m. at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, reducing the number of former death row inmates to eight, the state Department of Corrections has confirmed.
Martini, who also was convicted and sentenced for murdering Polly Duvall in Philadelphia two years earlier after swindling her in a real estate deal, made a name for himself by insisting he be killed rather than remain on what aqt the time was New Jersey’s death row.
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