Police Documents Reveal More About Night Woman Killed In Southwest OKC

LaShauna Sewell, News9.com

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A probable cause affidavit reveals new details about the scene police discovered when they found a woman's body in her Oklahoma City home.

Dartangan Cotton, 20, faces a first-degree murder charge in the death of 56-year-old Paula Martin. A neighbor called police to Martin's home near S.W. 48th Street and Western on Tuesday, September 6. The neighbor told police she'd seen a man sitting inside Martin's car, which was parked in her driveway. She said she saw the man exit the car, enter the garage and close the door behind him. The woman and her husband then went to Martin's house and knocked on the door, but no one answered.

When police arrived at the scene officers tried to make contact with Martin, but could not. According to police documents, officers secured the outside of the house until they could make entry. Once they went inside the house, they found Martin inside a bedroom with her hands bound behind her back. Police papers state she was dead as the result of an unknown trauma.

Police say as they moved through the house, Cotton -- who'd been hiding in the attic -- fell through the living room ceiling. Officers arrested him and took him to the Oklahoma County Jail.

Cotton lives with his mother and her husband just a few houses away from Martin. Police spoke with Cotton's mother who said she last saw her son Monday night, and did not see him at all the day of the crime.

During an interrogation, Cotton told police he was at home all day Tuesday, and only came outside when he heard police sirens outside. He said he walked outside and someone pointed at him, and that's when police arrested him. He claimed he didn't kill anybody and had never been inside Martin's house.

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