A veteran who recently served four years in the US Marines, Daniel Martinez was on vacation in Boston from the Chicago area for St. Patrick’s Day weekend.
On Saturday afternoon, he and a friend stopped by Sons of Boston, a Union Street bar near Faneuil Hall. On their first visit, they had no problems with anyone there, authorities said Monday. But shortly after 6 p.m., Martinez and his friend returned to the crowded bar, waiting outside in line while Alvaro O. Larrama manned the door.
Larrama wouldn’t let them inside, and after a brief exchange Martinez, 23, and his friend walked away. But Larrama, a 38-year old from East Boston, called another bouncer over to take his place and followed them down the street, prosecutors said as Larrama was arraigned on a charge of murder Monday.
As Larrama approached, Martinez turned toward him with his arm raised, as if to block a blow, according to a police account of the altercation. Martinez hit him with an aluminum beer bottle, and a fight broke out. Eventually, Larrama took out a knife and stabbed Martinez twice in his chest, killing him, authorities said.
Larrama, who was at large before he turned himself in to police on Monday morning, was ordered held without bail during a hearing in Boston Municipal Court, where relatives of Martinez sat teary-eyed, quietly mourning. They declined to comment as they left the courtroom.
“The family is grieving, and our hearts go out to them and all who know Mr. Martinez,” Suffolk District Attorney Kevin R. Hayden said at a news conference Monday. “We have to do everything we can to look out for each other and keep this city safe.”
Prosecutors said that video footage taken from multiple security cameras on Union Street shows Larrama putting his knife back into his pocket after the fight and being led into the kitchen at Sons of Boston, where he discarded the hat and sweatshirt he was wearing and turned his T-shirt inside out before leaving through a back exit. Martinez was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital and pronounced dead just before 7:30 p.m.
The bars along Union Street were closed for the evening as investigators canvassed the scene, police said. Officers searched for Larrama Saturday night after he called police to say he “wasn’t ready to turn himself in yet, but would do so” eventually.
In court, Larrama’s lawyer described him as a father of four who has been in a “committed and loving relationship for 20 years, with no convictions in over 20 years.” Yet court records show that Larrama has been arrested multiple times during the past five years on domestic violence charges, including allegations that he threw his ex-wife into a shelving unit and dragged her to the ground by her hair.
Larrama will return to court on April 28 for a probable cause hearing.
Coming early on a Saturday evening in one of the most popular areas in downtown Boston, the attack is “a hard case for this city, and how this city might be perceived,” Hayden said. “Anytime someone comes into the city for a time of celebration and it ends in tragedy, it affects the city.”
Hayden said the killing was “not a representation” of Boston, a city where people “stay strong for each other, and love and care for each other.”
Travis Andersen of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Ivy Scott can be reached at ivy.scott@globe.com. Follow her @itsivyscott. John R. Ellement can be reached at john.ellement@globe.com. Follow him @JREbosglobe.