Ex-Bouncer Changes Plea To Guilty In Palos Marine's Fatal Stabbing

PALOS HILLS, IL — An ex-bouncer has pleaded guilty to stabbing a Palos Hills Marine during a fight outside a Boston bar in March 2022.

Daniel Martinez, 23, had just been honorably discharged after serving four years in the U.S. Marine Corps when he went to Boston to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Martinez and a friend had gone to the Sons of Boston bar the night of March 19, 2022.

Boston police said Martinez was slain by a bouncer at the bar when he wouldn’t let the pair back into the club. Alvaro Larrama, the 38-year-old bouncer, followed the young Marine and his friend down the sidewalk after a verbal altercation when he stabbed Martinez, prosecutors said.

Larrama ran away after the stabbing but turned himself into police a few days later. Another woman was eventually charged as an accessory. The stabbing was captured on various security cameras

On Thursday, the ex-bouncer changed his plea to guilty in a Boston courtroom, news reports said.

Martinez, who lived with his father in Palos Hills, was recalled as a young man full of plans for the future in the days following the his death. Daniel had plans to buy a home to live in with his brothers, and to enroll in film school at Columbia College. The Marine’s father, Manuel, said his son always wanted to be a soldier.

“As a very young child, all my boys, we had them enrolled in the Baptist Boys Battalion,” his father said. “They give them training, everything from tying knots and starting fires.”

The family has since filed a wrongful death suit against the Sons of Boston bar, which lost its entertainment license following the stabbing.

According to the Boston attorney representing the Martinez family, the bouncer had been allowed to re-enter the bar, clean blood off himself and escape through the back door.

“The city has alleged that after the stabbing, the bar did nothing to call for help for Daniel or catch the person who stabbed him,” Boston attorney Thomas Flaws said in a 2022 news conference.

Services for Martinez were held out of the family business, Martinez Funeral Home, in Little Village.

“He loved this country," Manuel Martinez said of his son in 2022. “This country even with its imperfections has been very good to our family and to all the generations who came before us and will continue after us.”