Merlin Santana

Merlin Thomas Santana (born March 14, 1976 in New York City , New York , † November 9, 2002 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American film actor and musician .

Life

Childhood and youth

Merlin Santana was born in Washington Heights , New York ; his parents immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic to allow themselves a better life. Bringing up a Catholic , Santana was supposed to start a career in the film business, especially under pressure from his mother, who recognized his talent, in order to avoid the dangerous streets of New York.

Career

At the age of three, Santana was already in front of the camera in 1979 as a model for a fast food chain, which was followed by an extra role in The Purple Rose of Cairo by director Woody Allen in 1985 . The real breakthrough as an actor came in 1991, as a guest actor in two episodes of the television series Major Dad . He was also involved in seven episodes of the Bill Cosby Show between 1991 and 1992. Santana's filmmaking focused mainly on television series, including Moesha , New York Cops - NYPD Blue or JAG - On behalf of the honor . The best-known feature film in which Santana was seen was the 2002 action film Showtime on the side of Eddie Murphy and Robert De Niro .

In 1999 Santana tried it as a musician for a short time, but the three CDs he produced were not released.

murder

At around 2:30 am on the morning of November 9, 2002, Santana was sitting in his car with another man in a parking lot in southern Los Angeles. Suddenly a person approached the vehicle and fired several shots - the police later found six bullet holes. The passenger was seriously injured, but Merlin Santana died on the spot, despite immediate help. He was only 26 years old and on 18 November 2002 at the Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the New York borough The Bronx buried.

Merlin Santana leaves two daughters.

A street in Detroit in the US state of Michigan was named in his honor.

Procedure

The police soon arrested three people involved in the murder of Merlin Santana. Damien Andre Gates, 19 at the time of the crime, was sentenced in February 2004 to life imprisonment for murder without the possibility of pardon or early release. His accomplice, 23-year-old Brandon Douglas Bynes, was sentenced to 23 years in prison for manslaughter. Both had learned from Santana's 15-year-old friend Monique King that Santana had raped her. However, as investigators found, King invented rape. The girl had wrongly assumed that Gates and Bynes would only attack Santana, in the worst case knock down. In truth, the two men murdered the actor. Monique King was also sentenced to eight years in a juvenile detention center in February 2004 .

Filmography (selection)

• 2002: Showtime ( Showtime )

Web links

• Merlin Santana in the Internet Movie Database (English)