Daughter plays detective, hunts down dad's killer 26 years later spending just $280 and internet background-check sites

A lot of perseverance, a little cash and an Internet background check led singer Joselyn Martinez - and ultimately law enforcement - to Justo Santos in Miami. Her father, Jose, was shot in a heated confrontation with teens outside his restaurant in 1986.

Years ago, Joselyn Martinez, who once wanted to be a prosecutor, began searching for her father's killer on social media but came up with nothing. Her luck changed in 2008 when a free promotional search on Background.com turned up Santos, whose trail had grown cold since he fled to the Dominican Republic.

An actress with the silky voice of an angel showed the doggedness of a seasoned detective, tracking down the man accused of shooting her hardworking father to death 26 years ago.

Brown-eyed beauty Joselyn Martinez’s tenacity led to the arrest in Miami Thursday afternoon of Justo Santos — who had been on the lam since the 1986 slaying, as first reported in the Daily News. He mistakenly thought he had gotten away with murder.

Justo Santos

The 36-year-old songstress said it took her about eight years and a mere $280 paid to Internet background-check sites to crack the cold case.

“Knowing the person my father was, I couldn’t live with myself if (Santos) stayed free,” Martinez, of the Bronx, told the Daily News Monday. “I need to see him in New York to know this has really happened.”

Cops busted Santos Thursday in Miami, where the 5-foot-6 fugitive had been living in plain sight and working as the manager of a janitorial company.

He confessed to the killing and waived extradition, a police source said.

It was Joselyn — named after her father, Jose — who handed detectives at the 34th Precinct stationhouse Santos’ address and phone number that she unearthed from the Internet.

“She was dynamite. She did a great job of finding this guy. She basically solved the case,” a law enforcement source told The News.

Jose Martinez and his wife, Idalia, at his last birthday party in 1986

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Source: Daily News