Representative image showing a person with a chainsaw
Credit: iStock Photo
New York: The sad demise of Brandy Odom played out in a two-story home in Queens where she lived with roommates.
One, Adelle Anderson, worked as a prostitute, as did Odom. The second, Cory Martin, was a pimp who raged at the women and once stuck a gun barrel gun inside the mouth of Anderson's 8-year-old son, according to testimony at Martin's trial this year for Odom's murder.
Martin mused about killing for money, Anderson told jurors, and he chose Odom, 26, as the perfect victim, saying nobody would miss her. He and Anderson conducted research by watching "Dexter," a television drama about a serial killer, federal prosecutors said, and took out $200,000 of life insurance in Odom's name.
After a year of preparation, Martin strangled Odom in 2018 inside their home in the Rosedale neighborhood, then used a power saw to cut apart her corpse in the bathtub.
On Wednesday, Martin, 37, was sentenced to life in prison, the mandatory term under the law. He was found guilty in March of offenses including wire fraud conspiracy and murder-for-hire, which can apply in a murder committed for personal profit.
Judge Ann Donnelly, who sentenced Martin in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, said that he was guilty of "utter depravity" in his treatment of Odom.
"After you murdered her, you brutalized her body and discarded her as if she was just garbage," Donnelly told the defendant, adding: "You are a remorseless predator who is a danger to the community."
Martin, seated at the defense table and wearing bright yellow jail garb, declined to speak before being sentenced.
After Odom's murder, her family described her as a young woman with plans. She was working toward a job as a school security guard and hoped to get her own apartment.
Her mother, Nicole Odom, spoke in court Wednesday, describing the pain of losing her daughter.
"I cry every minute every hour," she said. "I can't see her or touch her or hear her voice."
She also addressed Martin before he was sentenced, saying: "May God have mercy on your soul, because I will not."
Anderson has not yet been sentenced. In 2021, she pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy and the fraudulent use of identification, both connected to her role in obtaining the insurance policies.
She appeared as a government witness during Martin's trial, saying that she had introduced Odom to Martin in 2016 and describing how the murder plot had unfolded.
Anderson and Odom were engaged in "commercial sex work," prosecutors wrote to the court, and they used Martin's home in Queens to meet customers. Within a year, prosecutors added, the two women had moved in with Martin and he became their pimp.
Martin exercised absolute control, prosecutors said. He would not allow the women to wear clothing inside the home. He required them to call him "daddy," and all the money they took in from customers went to him. Before showering, eating or buying anything, the two women had to have Martin's permission.
He was also said to be violent. Anderson testified that Martin punched her in the eye and fractured her shin by slamming her into a refrigerator. She told jurors that he raped her with objects including "brooms, hammers, liquor bottles," pointed a gun at her and put a knife to her throat.
Martin even beat and threatened her two children, the 8-year-old son and his 2-year-old brother, Anderson testified, and discussed the idea of murdering them and their father after taking out life insurance policies in their names. When he suspected that the 8-year-old was telling others about abuse within the home in Rosedale, prosecutors wrote, Martin put the gun inside the boy's mouth.
Eventually, Martin turned his attention toward Odom. He said "nobody loved her," Anderson testified, and in 2017 Anderson followed his direction to take out a $50,000 life insurance policy in Odom's name with herself as the beneficiary. That was followed by a second policy worth $150,000.
Then, in early 2018, Martin told Anderson that he was ready. She left the home in Rosedale to stay with her mother, prosecutors wrote. When she returned, Martin showed her Odom's body lying on a bedroom floor. Anderson testified that she later witnessed Martin dismembering the body in a bathroom.
When Martin found that his hand saw was not up to that task, he bought a motorized reciprocating saw, Anderson told jurors. Afterward, they dumped the body parts 10 miles away, inside Canarsie Park in Brooklyn.
Although Anderson made several calls to insurance companies, her attempts to collect on policies taken out on Odom failed.
Prosecutors wrote that the case stood out for its many months of planning, adding: "The depth of the premeditation involved in Odom's murder is seldom seen."
In addition to watching "Dexter," Martin watched episodes of "The First 48," a documentary series about homicide detectives, prosecutors wrote, believing the shows "could teach him how to conceal forensic evidence and other evidence."
After the murder, Martin opened windows to lower the temperature inside the bedroom where Odom's body was, trying to make it more difficult for a medical examiner to determine her time of death. He scrubbed and vacuumed the carpet in that bedroom to erase traces of blood. And he lined the bathroom where he conducted the dismemberment, floor to ceiling, in black plastic garbage bags.
In a footnote to their sentencing memorandum, prosecutors noted that the main character in "Dexter" covered his "kill room" with plastic before dismembering his victims.