Nashville Police Detective Tyler Manivong testified on August 27 that an illegal immigrant named Ulises Martinez confessed he killed a Nashville business owner named Matt Carnet in a hit-and-run. During a preliminary hearing, Manivong said that the illegal alien from Mexico admitted to police officers in July that he was driving the vehicle that killed Carney on June 19 in the parking lot of his famous bar and restaurant Smokin Thighs. Carney eventually died on July 4 from his severe injuries.
Police officers arrested the 29-year-old migrant on July 18 and charged him with evading arrest, tampering with evidence, criminal impersonation, felony theft, and criminal homicide. The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement that there is no information on when Martinez entered the country illegally. The Mexican national appeared for the preliminary hearing in an orange prison suit at Nashville’s Justice AA Birch building. Martinez didn’t speak English, so he had to use an interpreter who translated the proceedings.
Carney’s family, co-workers, and friends, attended the hearing and started to cry when Judge Robin Hayes started to hear the evidence about the incident. He determined that prosecutors led by Assistant District Attorney Lody Powers met the burden of evidence and advanced the case to a grand jury for further consideration.
The detective also said at the preliminary hearing that Martinez admitted that he and another illegal immigrant named Adrian Diaz drove the Nissan Frontier truck that was used in the hit-and-run. Manivong said that Martinez explained that Diaz was driving the truck when he suddenly parked in the restaurant’s parking lot as he saw a truck with some tools in the back. The detective detailed that the two migrants got out of the truck and started to steal the tools, but Carney saw them and jumped on their truck’s hood to prevent them from escaping. Manivong said that Martinez took the wheel and accelerated after Diaz yelled at him to do it.
Reporters said on social media that Diaz also came from Mexico illegally and has been deported on four occasions. They added that Diaz had a long criminal story that included illegal re-entry in 2020 in Indiana, as well as possession of narcotics in the same state back in 2019, and aggravated burglary back in 2014 in Tennessee.
Over the last four years, the United States has been experiencing a migrant crisis with hundreds of illegal entries every year, which has made many experts label the problem as a border crisis with the Biden administration to blame. Many politicians and political activists have blamed the US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for the chaos that has been taking place at the southern border. Critics say that none of them has done enough to solve the problem.
