This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Due to brain damage caused by drug use, charges have been dismissed against a man accused of killing another man more than 20 years ago during a party in Salt Lake City.

Antonio Luis Martinez, now 39, was charged in March 2012 in 3rd District Court with first-degree felony murder for the July 1995, gunshot slaying of 30-year-old John Wollshleger, of Sandy.

But questions about Martinez's mental competency quickly arose during the prosecution, and he ended up at the Utah State Hospital, where doctors ultimately determined he was not competent.

Prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the case in May, stating that "given the nature of [Martinez's] cognitive deficits, his prospects of restorability are poor."

Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Vincent Meister said Thursday that Martinez's drug use in the years after the homicide, including an overdose episode, had permanently damaged his brain.

Meister said Martinez had been released from the state hospital because authorities were unable to establish that he was a danger to himself or others.

According to charging documents, police on July 30, 1995, found Wollshleger dead from a gunshot to the head, in the bed of a small pickup truck parked on the side of the road at 1550 S. 700 West.

Martinez, after a May 2003 arrest involving drugs and weapons, told a Salt Lake City police officer that when he was younger he had done a crime so bad that he had to flee to Mexico and live there for a year, charges state. Martinez told the officer he had been on the run for that crime ever since and had never been interviewed by the police. There was no information in charging documents as to what extent police investigated Martinez's claims in 2003.

But in early 2012, two witnesses told police they saw Martinez shoot and kill Wollshleger with a rifle at a party, which one witness said was at about 747 W. 1300 South in Salt Lake City, charges state.

On March 11, 2012, police interviewed Martinez, who said that in 1995, he owned a 30-06 hunting rifle. The murder charge was filed nine days after that interview.