Police looking for clues after overdosed woman dumped in Phoenix lot in 2016

Phoenix police are looking for clues in the case of a young woman who was overdosing and dumped in an empty lot next to a convenience store in 2016.

BY JAYME WEST

Dec 17, 2024, 8:00 PM

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This article originally appeared Dec. 26, 2016.

A mother’s pride.

“She was just really social. She loved people and had a really giving heart. She was just beautiful on the inside and out.”

And now, a mother’s unspeakable pain at losing a daughter with whom she was really close relationship.

“It’s hard to move on without that.”

“On Friday, Oct. 7, 2016, Jaycee Martin was found near 91st Avenue and McDowell (Road),” Phoenix Police Sgt. Jamie Rothschild said.

It was 8:30 a.m. and Martin’s body had been dumped in a lot next to a convenience store. She was suffering from an overdose. Surveillance video showed a gray Lincoln Town Car pulling into that vacant lot an hour earlier.

Investigators believe someone put Martin in that car, took her to that lot and dumped her there instead of getting her help that could have saved her life. That’s why her death is being called a homicide.

Martin came from a big, fun-loving family that liked to camp and go off-roading and, while she had the adventurous spirit of a child, Jill said her daughter had an old soul.

“As far as, you know, compassion, understanding, sensitivity — those kinds of things.”

“It’s heartbreaking for any parent to go through the loss of a child, but the manner in which she was left there to suffer is especially traumatic for her family,” Rothschild said. “We need the community’s help to find out who did this and who owns that car.”

“She would do anything to fight for anyone else and we just want someone to step up and fight for her,” Jill said.