Major Leticia Martinez-Cosman update as brother breaks silence after body found in Renton

THE brother of a missing woman found dead has spoken out and said it was “a complete relief” to find her.

Leticia Martinez-Cosman, 58, disappeared March 31 after a Mariners game at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, Washington.

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After a week and a half of searching for Leticia, her body was found dead Tuesday in a ditch at the side of a road in a remote cul-de-sac in Renton, a suburb 12 miles southeast of Seattle.

“We’re in week two and it feels like yesterday, and it feels like the Friday I last saw her,” Ricardo Martinez, Leticia’s brother, told KOMO on Friday.

“I don’t feel like she’s gone,” he said. “I have a feeling she’s going to turn the corner.”

While Ricardo said it will likely be a while before he can process the heartbreaking news of his sister’s death, he said he was relieved her body was found.

“Just finding her was a complete relief,” he said. “Just to know we have her and we can bring her back to see her mother and family.”

On the day Leticia disappeared, she was taking a picture at the Mariners game with her date Brett Gitchel, 46, who was arrested on April 5.

Sometime the next day, she was strangled, the King County coroner told The US Sun.

Gitchel remains in custody, according to the King County Department of Adult & Juvenile Detention.

Now that Leticia’s body has been identified, prosecutors plan to charge Gitchel with second-degree murder next week.

ATTEMPTED KIDNAPPING

Ricardo was the one who reported Leticia missing on April 2nd.

On the same day, Leticia’s adult son was attacked by Gitchel in an attempted kidnapping, police said.

Gitchel told her son that his mother was in an accident and that he was taking him to her hospital, according to court documents.

The two got into what was described as an SUV, and the son said Gitchel “seemed to have been driving for hours” while Leticia’s son sat in the back.

Gitchel only stopped the car once and said he had to get water. But then he climbed into the back seat and tried to cover the son’s face and neck, court documents say.

Leticia’s son told police he believed Gitchel “attempted to kill him by choking or strangling him”.

The son, who police say is in “good physical condition,” managed to overpower Gitchel in the fight.

Police say Gitchel tried to strangle the son by wrapping his forearm around his neck.

The son managed to bite Gitchel’s hand, which allowed him to escape and seek help.

When Renton police arrived at the scene, they found the 24-year-old hiding in some bushes, visibly upset, bloodied and reporting he was having trouble explaining what had just happened.

Later that day, Seattle Fire Department crews responded to a roadside vehicle engulfed in flames.

Seattle police identified the Honda CRV as Leticias.

The fire is said to have been deliberately started in the passenger compartment of the vehicle, court documents say.

Gitchel has previously been charged with attempted first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm, first-degree theft and second-degree arson.