Connecticut man gets 33 years in prison for stray-bullet killing of Olympian's mother

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WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut man was sentenced to 33 years in prison on Tuesday for the stray-bullet killing of a Puerto Rican Olympic athlete's mother.

Jasper Greene, 23, of New Haven, was one of three men charged in the death of Mabel Martinez Antongiorgi on April 9, 2022. The 56-year-old woman was sewing in her home in Waterbury, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Hartford, when a bullet flew through a wall and hit her in the head.

Martinez Antongiorgi’s daughter, Yarimar Mercado Martinez, competed for the family's native Puerto Rico in rifle shooting at the Olympics in 2016, 2021 and 2024. She was in Brazil for another competition when her mother was killed.

Greene pleaded guilty to murder in February. His lawyer did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment after Tuesday's sentencing in Waterbury Superior Court.

According to court testimony, the fatal shooting stemmed from a dispute that one of the suspects, Franklin Robinson, had with a man who said hello to his girlfriend. Robinson, Greene and another man shot up a car parked on Martinez Antongiorgi’s street, thinking the man was inside it. A bullet went into Martinez Antongiorgi’s home. Another bystander was wounded but survived.

A jury convicted Robinson of murder and other charges in 2023 and he was later sentenced to 90 years in prison.

The third suspect, Levi Brock, has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges in the case, including murder, and awaits trial.

At the time of her mother’s death, Mercado Martinez lamented in social media posts that she “couldn’t even say goodbye.”

“Why you? Why this way?” she wrote. “You were just sitting in your little house sewing, as you always did.”

Martinez Antongiorgi and her husband of over 30 years, John Luis Mercado, moved to Waterbury from Puerto Rico a few years after the U.S. territory endured 2017’s devastating Hurricane Maria. At the time of her death, they had set a date to renew their wedding vows, their daughter wrote at the time.