Alpo Martinez, a former Harlem drug kingpin who became an informant, was killed not for snitching but because of a simmering feud over his erratic driving, a law enforcement official said.
When Alpo Martinez was shot and killed in the early hours of Halloween last fall, carrying a driver’s license with a fake name, rumors swirled about who might have finally come for him. In his decades-long Icarian arc, Mr. Martinez had amassed an extensive list of enemies — first as a ruthless drug kingpin in the 1980s, and then as a federal informant.
But his death was not a case of long-awaited payback for his infamous betrayal, a law enforcement official said.
Instead, the authorities believe Mr. Martinez was killed over a street beef, stemming from his penchant for careering dangerously down Harlem streets on his motorcycle.
Shakeem Parker, 27, was charged last week with Mr. Martinez’s murder, a senior law enforcement official said — a shooting that stemmed from an incident in which Mr. Martinez buzzed past Mr. Parker.
It is a startlingly mundane end to a life that former friends say was defined by a sort of comic book villainy. Mr. Martinez rocketed to fame in 1980s Harlem as a flashy drug dealer in the crack cocaine era, known for having fast cars, nice bikes and a violent streak.
He tumbled just as spectacularly: He murdered his best friend, was arrested, and, finally, cut a deal to become a federal informant — a saga chronicled in a Hollywood movie, “Paid in Full.”
In the years since his 2015 release from prison, he was living under an assumed identity in Maine. But the one thing that might have saved Mr. Martinez’s life was the one thing he could not do: Stay away from Harlem.
According to the law enforcement official, Mr. Martinez had clashed with Mr. Parker over the summer when Mr. Martinez, riding his motorcycle, brushed past Mr. Parker in a way that showed disrespect. The pair exchanged words on a Harlem street, but that was the end of it — until October.
Around 3 a.m. in the pre-dawn hours of Oct. 31, Mr. Parker was standing around 151st Street and 8th Avenue when he noticed Mr. Martinez’s unmistakable, lifted pickup truck parked across the street, the official said. Spontaneously, Mr. Parker approached the driver’s side window and opened fire, striking Mr. Martinez several times in the left arm, the official said.
Mr. Martinez threw his truck into gear and tore south. But one of Mr. Parker’s gunshots had gone through his left arm and struck his heart, the official said. Mortally wounded, he crashed into a parked car around 147th Street, leaving a trail of heroin packets behind him on 8th Avenue (law enforcement officials believe Mr. Martinez had tossed them out of his open window, fearing arrest when police arrived).
Mr. Martinez and Mr. Parker had for months avoided each other, and law enforcement officials do not believe Mr. Parker sought him out last Halloween — the senior law enforcement official called it a crime of opportunity. Mr. Parker was charged last week with second-degree murder.
Mr. Martinez’s death at age 55 came as little surprise to those who knew him, both through his old life in Harlem or his new one, in Maine. Even after being released from prison, Mr. Martinez returned regularly to the city and engaged with his old life, trying to settle old feuds and re-enter the street scene.
His returns to Harlem eventually got him kicked out of the witness protection program, which had placed him in Lewiston, Maine, after his release from prison. There, living under an assumed identity, he made friends, started his own contracting business and rode dirt bikes in the woods. Few knew their friendly neighbor’s history.
“He was the nicest neighbor,” said Marissa Ritchey, who spoke with The Times in Maine earlier this year and knew Mr. Martinez as Abraham. “He was always polite, nice with the dog.”
Even in death, Mr. Martinez was elusive. When investigators first processed the crime scene that October night, they found a Maine driver’s license, identifying the dead man in the truck as Abraham Rodriguez. But there were no records and little to show he had existed, at all.
As dawn broke on Halloween, police officers got an anonymous tip, the official said: The man in the morgue was not named Abraham Rodriguez.
When investigators ran the body’s fingerprints, the truth was revealed: After years of courting fate, Alpo Martinez was dead.
Murray Carpenter contributed reporting from Maine.
