A man from Queens, New York, was convicted on Monday on multiple charges related to the cold-blooded murder of a woman whose body parts had been scattered across Canarsie Park in Brooklyn in 2018.
Cory Martin, 36, will spend the rest of his life in federal prison after he was found guilty of murder-for-hire, murder-for-hire conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, aggravated identity theft, and the fraudulent use of identification on March 4. He was arrested in 2020 after trying several times to claim his murder victim’s death benefits.
Over the course of Martin’s two-week trial, federal prosecutors showed that he had meticulously planned the killing of 26-year-old Brandy Odom — a woman he was living with and trafficking for sex. His motivation had been greed, prosecutors argued, with Martin and his co-conspirator, Adelle Anderson, fraudulently obtaining two life insurance policies on the victim, according to CBS News.
“Martin saw the victim as a moneymaker … then after killing her with his bare hands, tossing out her slaughtered body parts like trash so he could profit from her death,” said Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in a press release.
“Brandy Odom suffered an unthinkable death at the defendant’s hands, but her life mattered, and I hope that this verdict holding the defendant responsible brings some measure of closure to her family,” he said.
Several details about the murder conspiracy were revealed in court by Anderson, who had already pled guilty to charges related to the crime. She explained how Martin had watched the true crime show The First 48 and the fictional series Dexter, which is about a serial killer, for tips on how to commit the murder without getting caught, according to CBS.
After strangling Odom to death, Martin got to work disposing of the body — searching for a Dewalt 12-amp corded reciprocating saw on Home Depot’s website and watching YouTube videos to learn how to use it, per the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Together with Anderson, he covered his bathroom with garbage bags to aid in the cleanup as he cut Odom’s body into segments in the bathtub.
The dismembered body parts were found bagged up and tossed across Canarsie Park, where a woman walking her dog discovered them and alerted police.
“I came back and looked closer, and it was the body of a female with her limbs removed,” said Patricia Smith, according to ABC 7. “I ran away. … It was extremely nerve-wracking. That was my first experience seeing something like that.”
Edward Caban, the commissioner of the New York City Police Department, said in a statement that Martin’s guilty verdict should be “a message to anyone who, without fear of being held accountable, commits heinous acts of criminality in New York City.”
In Dallas, the murder rate rose by 15% between 2022 and 2023, with 38 criminal homicides logged in 2024 as of March 7, according to data from the City’s crime analytics dashboard. The victims of these crimes have been overwhelmingly black and Hispanic males.
The Dallas Police Department has struggled to get crime under control amid a chronic staffing shortage. Even though the City previously found that a force of approximately 4,000 officers was necessary to adequately ensure public safety based on Dallas’ population size, DPD currently fields just around 3,000 officers.
Studies showing that Downtown Dallas regularly outpaces the downtown area of Fort Worth in terms of crime — especially motor vehicle theft and assaults — attest to the negative effects of this shortfall. Fort Worth manages crime in its city center through a specialized police unit and private security guards.
Dallas City Council recently approved a DPD budget of $654 million this fiscal year. This is considerably less than the spending levels seen on police in other high-crime jurisdictions such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
