Harald Marty Edward Martinson III was 35 when he was shot and killed during the early morning hours of May 28, 2016, at a residence on Shepherdstown Road near Martinsburg, West Virginia. Investigators found him in a bathroom with a single gunshot wound; emergency efforts failed and he was pronounced dead at Berkeley Medical Center. He had been born October 28, 1980, in Hagerstown, Maryland, and was weeks away from graduating from the James Rumsey Technical Institute, having been inducted into the National Technical Honor Society and passed the apprentice level of the West Virginia State Electrical Examination. He was also a graduate of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and is remembered by family as a prolific artist.

Jennifer Jean Pendias, who was 31 at the time, was with Martinson when an argument occurred and called 911, telling dispatchers she had accidentally shot him. Authorities treated the death as a homicide and arrested Pendias the same day, charging her with murder. Prosecutors later negotiated a proposed resolution allowing Pendias to enter an Alford plea to second-degree murder; reports document that negotiation but do not conclusively establish the final sentence imposed.