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article <\/p>\n article <\/p>\n
PERRYTON, Texas – A state fire marshal’s office sergeant is being recognized for his instrumental hand in exposing the truth behind a 4-year-old girl’s murder in the Texas<\/a> Panhandle.\u00a0<\/p>\n The investigator’s work helped to convict a man found near the victim, who the Texas Department of Insurance says had started a house fire in an attempt to hide his crime<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Panhandle murder investigation <\/p>\n The 2022 incident began when the body of the victim, Hope Raley, was found on a bed in the master bedroom of a blazing home. It happened in Perryton, about three hours north of Lubbock, where State Fire Marshal’s Office Sgt. Kelly Vandygriff traveled from to assist in the following investigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n What they’re saying:<\/p>\n “Any time there\u2019s a loss of life, we make it a priority to be on the scene as quickly as possible,” Vandygriff said. “We\u2019re there to carefully process the scene, follow the evidence, and help bring clarity to what happened.”<\/p>\n After Perryton officials put out the fire and found Raley’s body, the TDI release says Humberto Martinez, an occupant of the burning home, was found in a crawlspace beneath the building. Martinez was found to have been the last person Raley was seen with before her death.\u00a0<\/p>\n An autopsy of Raley’s body, which Vandygriff witnessed, determined that she had been strangled to death before the fire started. Further investigation, led by Vandygriff, found a lighter and combustibles near the mattress where Raley’s body was found. This led to Martinez’s connection to the start of the fire.<\/p>\n Confession and sentence <\/p>\n After he was released from the hospital for smoke inhalation treatment, TDI said Martinez confessed to a Texas Ranger that he had strangled Raley.<\/p>\n On March 4, 2026, Martinez pleaded guilty to capital murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Source: Information in this article comes from the Texas Department of Insurance.<\/p>\n Crime and Public Safety<\/a>Texas<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article PERRYTON, Texas – A state fire marshal’s office sergeant is being recognized for his instrumental hand in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1046,223,27,29,28,216,393],"class_list":["post-275174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-news","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-tx","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}