A woman claims her city-worker son has confessed to her that he is the ruthless gunman who shot dead a Bronx mom through her peephole nearly a decade a go — providing a new lead in the now cold case, The Post has learned.
The mom told a private investigator that her now-city-worker son brazenly admitted to the killing of Wendy Martinez, who cops believe was shot dead in retaliation for the murder of the woman’s son’s best friend in 2018.
“He said, ‘You know I know who did that, right?’” the mom said in the recording obtained by The Post, who claims that the confession happened while in her car in 2022.
The woman then begged her son — a worker for the city’s Administration of Children’s Services — to tell her that he wasn’t involved in it, which he initially denied before he “laughed and smirked at her.”
“I said, ‘Are you kidding me? Did you have any involvement in that?’ And he said, ‘Yeah,’” she said in the taped confession with PI Manuel Gomez.
The alleged gunman has a criminal history.
Martinez, 45, was gunned down through the peephole in her Concourse Village apartment on Nov. 24, 2018. No killer has been charged.
At the time, cops suspected the shooter had been targeting Martinez’s son Brian Solano, now 33, who was not home at the time — in retaliation for allegedly killing 21-year-old Willie Lora inside Lora’s nearby Bronx apartment in Dec. 2014.
Solano served eight years in prison a manslaughter conviction stemming from Lora’s killing before being released on parole earlier this year, court records show.
He was a Trinitarios gang member, according to police sources, who also said that the mom’s apartment had been targeted by rival Bloods offshoot The Eden Boys.
Martinez, a hospital worker, was not the intended target and was caught in the middle of gang violence when she simply went to answer the doorbell, cops had said at the time.
She was home with her then 11-year-old son when she asked who is it, only to get no reply.
When she asked the same question after the bell was rang again, she slid open the peephole and the masked gunman fired a single, fatal shot through the viewing slot that hit Martinez’s face, cops have said.
Surveillance video of the alleged killer showed a masked man leaving Martinez’s building with an open umbrella, which he used to shield his identity, sources said at the time.
The alleged killer’s mom said that she immediately knew it was her when reviewing the footage.
“I recognized him. I recognized his build, his body, his walk, his run, everything. His whole persona — I know that person,” the woman said before dramatically coughing up, “I’m his mother.”
The umbrella was ditched at the scene and is believed to contain DNA that could finally nab the suspect.
The mother of the alleged killer has not gone to the police with the alleged confession, but detectives are expected to speak with her soon.
No one has been charged with Martinez’s murder.
The Bronx District Attorney’s Office did not immediately return request for comment.
