Prosecutors said revived cellphone analysis helped jurors reject Noel Ledesma’s old alibi and convict him in the death of 22-year-old Yvette Martinez.
SALINAS, Calif. — A Monterey County jury has convicted Noel Ledesma of first-degree murder in the 2010 killing of his former girlfriend, Yvette Martinez, ending a case that had gone unsolved for more than 15 years before investigators reopened it and rebuilt the timeline with cellphone records.
Martinez was 22 when she disappeared after a night out with friends and her boyfriend in Salinas and Greenfield. Prosecutors said the case turned on evidence showing Ledesma waiting outside her home for hours, false messages sent from her phone after she was killed, and a burning car found that evening in a remote area off Highway 198. The verdict marked one of the biggest public outcomes yet for Monterey County’s Cold Case Task Force, which revisited the homicide years after the first investigation stalled.
According to prosecutors, Martinez and Ledesma dated in early 2010 but broke up and stayed in contact. For months, Ledesma tried to get back together with her, but Martinez refused. By mid-September of that year, she had started seeing someone else. On Oct. 9, 2010, Martinez went out with friends and her then-boyfriend. Prosecutors said she spent part of the evening drinking in Salinas, later went to a corn maze with her boyfriend, then stopped at a Salinas restaurant to see another friend before heading home. Throughout the night, Ledesma repeatedly called and texted her. Prosecutors said Martinez mostly ignored him. As the night went on, they said, he grew angrier and complained that his friends were “ridiculing him and laughing at him.” A little after midnight on Oct. 10, they said, Ledesma went to her home in Greenfield and waited there until Martinez arrived back at 3:11 a.m. She never made it inside.
That morning, prosecutors said, Martinez’s phone dropped off the cellular network for nearly the entire day, which they described as highly unusual based on her phone history. For a short stretch that afternoon, the phone reconnected and sent messages to friends that prosecutors said did not appear to be from Martinez. Friends and relatives tried to reach her, but the calls went unanswered. At about 8 p.m. on Oct. 10, her car was found burning off Highway 198 a few miles from Priest Valley Road, in a rural stretch between Monterey County communities and Fresno County ranch land. Martinez’s body was in the trunk. An autopsy determined she died of strangulation. Prosecutors said someone tried to push the car into a canyon, but it became stuck on a berm before it could go over the edge. Her remains were so badly burned that investigators identified her through dental records.
Investigators suspected Ledesma early in the case, prosecutors said, pointing to his behavior after Martinez’s death, his relationship with her and his communications that night. But suspicion was not enough to bring the case to trial in 2010. Ledesma told investigators he had been home when Martinez disappeared and later attended a family party at the time the car was set on fire. His brother supported that account, and authorities could not then disprove it. The case later cooled. In 2020, District Attorney Jeannine M. Pacioni created a county Cold Case Task Force, and prosecutors said Martinez’s killing was among the unsolved homicides taken up again. The task force began working the case in 2022, according to the district attorney’s office, and brought in experts to analyze old cellphone data. That review, prosecutors said, produced what they called powerful visual evidence that undercut Ledesma’s alibi by placing him near Martinez’s home for hours before she returned and by showing he was not at the family gathering when the car was burning.
The renewed case moved quickly once charges were filed. Prosecutors announced in February 2025 that Ledesma, then 43 and living in Yuma, Arizona, had been arrested with help from the Yuma Police Department and charged in Monterey County with Martinez’s murder. He was later extradited to California and entered a not guilty plea at an early court appearance. The criminal case was identified by prosecutors as People v. Noel Aguilera Ledesma, and Monterey County officials said the revived investigation relied on cooperation between the district attorney’s office, sheriff’s detectives and outside specialists. By February 2026, jurors had heard enough to convict him of first-degree murder. Prosecutors said the mandatory sentence for that conviction is 25 years to life in prison. Judge Jennifer O’Keefe had been scheduled to handle sentencing on March 12, 2026. As of March 15, 2026, no later public court update was readily available in the materials reviewed for this article.
The case has carried emotional weight in Monterey County because of how long Martinez’s family waited for movement. In television interviews after the 2025 arrest, Crystal Martinez, the victim’s sister, said she felt peace knowing the accused man was no longer free and could not hurt anyone else. Assistant District Attorney Matt L’Heureux said the task force’s goal was to keep pressing old homicide cases until investigators could bring someone to court. The district attorney’s office has also framed the conviction as proof that dormant evidence can gain new value as analytical tools improve. Even with the verdict, some details remain outside the public record, including the precise moment prosecutors believe Martinez was killed and whether any witness saw the confrontation outside her home. What is public is the broad path of the case: a young woman vanished after a night out, her body was found in the trunk of a burning car, and prosecutors said digital records finally gave jurors the timeline they had lacked for years.
The case stood, as of mid-March 2026, with a murder conviction in place and the next public milestone tied to sentencing records or any post-trial court filing that may follow.
Author note: Last updated March 15, 2026.