Bronx Street Astronomer ‘Jupiter Joe’ Convicted of Killing Teen After DNA Linked Him to Crime Decades Later

A Bronx street astronomer known as “Jupiter Joe” has been found guilty in the decades-old murder of a 13-year-old girl who dreamed of traveling to space.

Joseph Martinez was convicted on Friday, Nov. 14, for the 1999 killing of Minerliz “Minnie” Soriano after investigators linked him to the crime through DNA evidence.

According to a press release from the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, Martinez — who was known in the neighborhood for giving free astronomy lessons to adults and children — sexually assaulted Minerliz and compressed her neck, causing her death.

The straight-A student was last seen leaving her middle school on Feb. 24, 1999. Four days later, her body was discovered in a garbage bag inside a dumpster behind a video store in the Bronx, about two miles from her home.

“She dreamed of one day becoming an astronaut,” her best friend Kimberly Ortiz previously said. “I used to make fun of her about it. I used to tell her, ‘We’re from the Bronx, we’re not going to be astronauts.’”

Minerliz, who grew up in the Pelham Parkway section of the Bronx, was a “latchkey kid,” recalled retired NYPD homicide detective Malcolm Reiman, who worked on the case.

“She’d sit in the lobby doing her homework until someone came home to unlock the apartment door,” he said. “She was responsible for doing the family’s laundry. The family didn’t have much money, so she would do door-to-door candy sales to make a little money for herself. And she was knocking on every door in that building and selling candy.

“Every male in that building had the opportunity to meet this little girl, and my feeling was there was a predator among them,” he added.

Martinez, who lived in the same apartment building, was interviewed in 1999 and told authorities he had seen Minerliz collecting mail in the lobby and selling candy door to door with her sister. At the time, however, he was not considered a suspect and the case eventually went cold.

More than 20 years later, investigators re-examined DNA found on Soriano’s sweater and discovered it partially matched the profile of Martinez’s deceased father. Detectives then began surveilling Martinez and retrieved a straw he discarded at a diner, which tested as a match to the crime scene evidence.

It was the first time New York City used familial DNA testing — a method that searches offender databases for potential relatives of an unknown suspect — to identify a killer.

For Reiman, the conviction brings long-awaited relief.

“I think it’s a closing of a nightmare,” he said. “And I’m hoping that she’s at peace now. I think that’s what we all hope, that she’s finally got justice and that she’s at peace now.”

Martinez is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 8, 2026.