PHOENIX — When we take our last breath, how we made others feel and the memories we leave behind define who we were in life.
And those who got to meet Irma Martinez love everything she embodied.
“One of the kindest people you’d ever meet,” said her friend Cyn. “You could meet her for two seconds, and you could have a friend for the rest of your life.”
Irma was murdered on April 21. She was stocking shelves at the Chevron gas station store near 51st and Glendale avenues when police said 23-year-old Mohammad Ataei shot her in the back ten times.
“She was a role model for us how other people would want to be treated and I think that without her, her kindness will live through the rest of us,” Cyn said, surrounded by three other friends of Irma who attended a mass service organized to honor the 25-year-old's memory on Friday, a day before her birthday.
It was a ceremony Irma’s mother told 12News she was eager to do after waiting nearly a month until her remains were released to them.
“She was a great person,” Fernanda Tapia said. “I’m going to miss her a lot, honestly.”
During the mass service, the priest blessed Irma’s urn while her parents held tight to her.
Friends took flowers, candles, and white balloons and placed them next to the altar prepared for the service.
With tears in their eyes, Irma’s friends remembered a person they said had a kind and pure heart, someone who just had a special aura.
They said Irma was not only kind to those she knew but also to strangers, like the homeless customers at her job.
“Even without knowing you, she’d be willing to help you,” said Irma’s cousin, Alexia Duarte. “She would help the homeless. She would give them chips and drink, and they discounted that from her salary.”
“If she made you laugh one or more times, you were more than likely somebody that would consider her a friend, no,” Cyn said. “She made friends easily. She was loved easily. She really was the easiest person to love. How could you not love someone who puts everybody else before her?”
Irma’s friends said they would keep her legacy alive.
“She always saw the brighter side of days and now we have to do for each other with her not being here,” Cyn said.
Ski-masked murderer
Muhammad Ataei, the 23-year-old accused of killing Irma, was indicted by a grand jury on first-degree premeditated murder and first-degree burglary.
Investigators believe the killing was targeted and his relationship to Irma is still unclear.
They say he entered the gas station store wearing a ski mask and walked up to Irma, who was stocking items along the shelve. Police said she walked to another store area and Ataei followed her.
He then allegedly fired his gun multiple times without saying a word and fled the store on foot.
It all happened in less than a minute. He crossed the street to an alleyway, where court records say he had parked his vehicle, which he had allegedly used minutes before the targeted attack, to canvass the area before the shooting.
Investigators tracked him down through security cameras.
He was arrested a week after the murder less than a block from the crime scene.
While executing a search warrant at his Avondale home, police said they found the ski mask and clothing they say was used during the attack.
Court records said he refused to cooperate with detectives.
Ataei is being held on a $1 million secure bond.
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