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Queens Woman Charged With Using Hammer To Kill Father

New York -- A Queens woman beat her 67-year-old father to death with a hammer and then abandoned her 5-year-old daughter at school and went off to smoke cocaine, prosecutors said Monday.

Laura Martin, 43, of Long Island City, was charged Sunday with murder, tampering with evidence, criminal possession of a weapon and endangering the welfare of a child, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said. She could face 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

Martin told police she got in a fight with her father, John Martin, in their apartment in the Ravenswood Housing Development on Wednesday night.

She said he grabbed her by the arm and threatened to hit her with a glass bottle, so she picked up a metal hammer and struck him on the head with it several times, according to the criminal complaint.

Martin went to bed and early the following morning placed a plastic bag over her father's head, covered his body with a blanket and cleaned the blood from the hammer, the walls and the floor, Brown said. She then took her daughter, Tiffany Martin, to school and went to smoke cocaine until the following day, Brown said.

When Martin did not appear to pick up Tiffany on Thursday, school officials called a relative, who discovered the body and notified police.

Martin was arrested on Saturday and arraigned before Criminal Court Judge William Erlbaum, who ordered her held without bail.

A Legal Aid Society lawyer who was assigned to represent Martin during arraignment would not comment in depth because he said he would not be representing her at trial.

"I would hope, however, that everyone would keep an open mind," attorney Francis Gibbons said. "She may very well be a battered woman."