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When Santiago High baseball player Brandon Willie Martin signed a contract in 2011 to play for the Tampa Bay Rays, he did so with an eye toward his future: The $1 million signing bonus, received after Martin was the 38th overall pick in the draft, included $144,000 for college.

But with that cash in hand, Riverside County prosecutors say, Martin lived his life like there was no tomorrow.

Now, nine years later, the 27-year-old’s future is in question.

On Sept. 17, 2015, prosecutors say, Martin swung a wooden, black baseball bat engraved with his name at his father’s Winthrop Drive home in Corona and bludgeoned to death his father, Michael Martin, 64; his uncle, Ricky Andersen, 58; and Barry Swanson, 62, a technician installing an ADT security system that was intended to keep Brandon away.

The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office is seeking the death penalty as the trial resumes with jury selection Friday, Sept. 4, after a break because of the coronavirus pandemic. Martin’s attorney, T. Edward Welbourn, said Martin is mentally ill and as a result should not face capital punishment if convicted. Martin has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and other charges related to his capture.

The trial may not proceed on Friday; Welbourn said he will seek to postpone it to January. In the meantime, the victims’ families are suing Riverside County, alleging negligence, claiming that officials failed to properly assess Martin during a mental-health hold in the days prior to the slayings and released him from the 72-hour detention too soon.

‘Clearly gone to his head’

A trial brief filed by the DA’s Office detailed a life for Martin filled with excess, mental difficulties and rage.

Martin, a shortstop, completed a successful first minor league season in 2011 during which his coaches considered him reserved and quiet.

That November, Martin rented a 6,700-square-foot home on Hidden Hills Road in Yorba Linda. He paid $6,000 a month and lived there through February 2012. During that time, the trial brief said, Brea police were called to the home 19 times. Police records note loud parties, a brawl with baseball bats and “blood everywhere.”

Partiers, many under age 21 and drinking, were seen urinating on nearby lawns and reported drug use and half-naked girls dancing on tables. Twice, Martin was arrested for disturbing the peace.

“It was a veritable bacchanalian and debauched existence,” the trial brief said. “Brandon Martin was 18 years old and had just received a $1 million professional baseball contract; it had clearly gone to his head.”

Following the 2012 minor league season, Martin rented a five-bedroom house in the Eagle Glen Golf Club community in Corona. His entourage from the Yorba Linda manse moved in, and the drug-infused parties continued, the trial brief said.

Nevertheless, Martin was playing well in spring training in 2013 before fracturing his left thumb. After his recovery, he was assigned to the Bowling Green Hot Rods in Kentucky, where coaches said he was disrespectful and did not respond well to criticism.

Ultimately, Martin was sent home after failing three drug tests for marijuana. Then at an instructional camp in January 2014, Martin was again disrespectful toward coaches, hurling profanities at them.

“These coaches, with decades of experience, stated it was the worst behavior they had ever seen from a player,” the trial brief said.

Martin was again sent home and quickly ran into more trouble. He broke a finger assaulting his older brother, Sean, on Feb. 5. The Rays suspended Martin through September. Then on March 26, 2015, the Rays released Martin from his contract.

His baseball career was over, but the worst, as alleged by prosecutors, was yet to come.

Martin’s violence increases

Following his release, Martin lived mostly at his parents’ home, continuing to abuse drugs. He had no job, he had spent all his money, and he was resentful of being supported by his parents, the trial brief said. Martin, who is biracial, particularly focused his anger on his Black father, calling him a racist slur. Martin once head-butted Sean; another time Martin punched his disabled father, who used a wheelchair, in the head.

The family finally scheduled an intervention for Martin on Sept. 15, 2015, two days after he choked his mother, Melody, and held scissors to her neck.

At that intervention, Martin’s cousin Michael Andersen reported the assaults to Corona police. Martin admitted to an officer that he choked his mother but said it was self-defense. He denied threatening anyone with the scissors he picked up. Martin told the officer he was seeing a therapist but was not taking his medication.

The officer decided to take Martin in for a 72-hour mental-health examination. Family members did not want Martin taken, fearing the effect on his baseball career, the trial brief said, but they relented when the officer said the other alternative was an arrest.

What happened at Riverside County Mental Health in Riverside is being disputed in the survivors’ lawsuit. The suit says the county did not diagnose or treat Martin, and that he was released early from the hold to free up a bed. The county, court records show, said Martin was given a psychiatric evaluation and that doctors diagnosed Martin with a mood disorder and drug abuse but decided he did not meet the criteria to be detained.

Martin was prescribed a mood stabilizer and an antidepressant. On Sept. 17, he was told his family didn’t want him at their house, and he was given a bus pass and directions to a bus stop, the trial brief said.

But Martin did go to his parents’ home, the trial brief said.

“Immediately upon arriving at the home,” the lawsuit says, “Brandon smashed his wheelchair-bound father’s head in with a baseball bat, killing him instantly. The ADT alarm installer, Barry Swanson, tried to stop the attack. Brandon then attacked Swanson with the baseball bat, killing him as well. Ricky Andersen tried to intervene to stop the attack. Brandon beat Andersen with the baseball bat, and dragged him into the garage.”

Martin then stole the victims’ wallets and cell phones, as well as Swanson’s car, and went to dinner at Carl’s Jr., the trial brief said.

Martin was arrested the next day after a vehicle pursuit and foot chase. He told detectives that he entered the home and found the bloody scene but was not responsible for the victims’ deaths.

‘He has value to his family’

Welbourn, the defense lawyer, said it is difficult to pinpoint what went wrong in Martin’s life but that he was abusing drugs and having psychotic episodes.

“It’s just a very tragic situation for everybody, and it just shocks me that when you have a person who is 5150 (mentally ill) … now the answer is to try to give the gentleman the death penalty,” Welbourn said.

He intends to focus on the penalty phase of the trial, he said, and try to save Martin from that fate.

District Attorney Mike Hestrin, in an interview, said his office considered the mental-health issue but ultimately decided that in pursuing the death penalty, the aggravating factors far outweighed any mitigating information.

Welbourn said he is concerned that COVID-19 distancing rules issued by the court will prevent family members from attending the trial and that the absence could influence the jury’s decision on a penalty.

“If all they see is an empty courtroom, they’re going to think nobody cares,” Welbourn said. “The emotion of the trial will be pulled out of it, and in a case like this, the only way to save his life is to show there is mental illness and that he has value to his family and that the family still loves him.”