How did the deadly carjacking of a Homestead woman unfold? Prosecutors lay out theory
The bewildering question of why a masked carjacker kidnapped a Homestead woman who had made the hours-long drive to Central Florida in April is no longer a mystery.
One of the men whom 31-year-old Katherine Altagracia Guerrero De Aguasvivas had driven up to meet — with the help of three others — “coordinated and carried out a premediated and gruesome murder” to rob the woman of the $170,000 she traveled to retrieve from him, according to court records filed by prosecutor Dana Hill in the Middle District of Florida.
READ MORE: Homestead woman’s carjacking death unveils tangled web of drugs and murder beyond Florida
The four men suspected in Guerrero De Aguasvivas’ killing were indicted last week on carjacking, kidnapping and use of a firearm during a violent crime charges. Jordanish Torres-Garcia, 28; Kevin Omar Ocasio Justiniano, 25; Giovany Joel Crespo Hernandez, 27; and Dereck Alexis Rodriguez Bonilla, a 21-year-old previously not publicly connected to the case, could now face the death penalty.
Hill, in a filing urging a judge to keep the men locked up as they await trial, argued that they pose “a grave danger to the community” and that “their incentive to flee could not be stronger” as the possibility of life or death sentences loom.
Prosecutors have yet to determine whether they will be seeking the death penalty in the case. The Department of Justice has only sought the death penalty once during the term of President Joe Biden, the first president in office to openly oppose capital punishment. Earlier this year, federal prosecutors announced that they planned to pursue the death penalty in the hate crime case of the gunman convicted of killing 10 Black shoppers at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in May 2022.
A coordinated conspiracy over $170K?
Guerrero De Aguasvivas, the document states, drove to Central Florida around noon on April 11 to meet up with Crespo Hernandez’s house in Seminole County to collect $170,000, money associated with drug trafficking activities. It’s currently unknown how Guerrero De Aguasvivas was linked to the criminal underworld.
Crespo Hernandez, according to other records, was the target of a 2020 Homeland Security probe in the Miami area that led to agents seizing more than $300,000. He’s also a known member of a drug trafficking organization and a person of interest in “a series of home invasions and homicide investigations.”
The name of the trafficking organization wasn’t included in the document. There are no public court records related to the 2020 federal inquiry, and it’s unclear why Crespo Hernandez wasn’t charged in that case.
READ MORE: Unveiling a drug nexus? A look at the probe into Homestead woman’s deadly carjacking
As the unsuspecting woman drove north, Crespo Hernandez called Torres-Garcia and plotted to fleece her of the same money he was turning over, according to the filing. The pair then recruited Ocasio Justiniano and Rodriguez Bonilla.
At around 4:30 p.m., Torres-Garcia and Ocasio Justiniano were caught on tape at a gas station, purchasing lighter fluid in preparation of the rip-off, the document states. The duo then hung around Crespo Hernandez’s home, awaiting the Homestead woman.
Cell phone location data, feds say, placed them nearby when she arrived at around 5:15 p.m. While Guerrero De Aguasvivas was at the house — and shortly after she left, Crespo Hernandez and Torres-Garcia spoke on the phone seven times.
A little over 15 minutes later, the Homestead woman called her husband Miguel Angel Aguasvivas and told him someone “tapped” her SUV, the filing says. Aguasvivas advised his wife: “Don’t stop, don’t stop, anywhere,” according to Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma. She didn’t call 911.
A motorist who witnessed the attack recorded a man, covered from head to toe in black, pointing a semiautomatic rifle at the driver’s side door of the Durango while it was stopped at a red light at East Lake Drive and Tuskawilla Road in Seminole County. The hijacker then opened the rear driver’s side door and hopped into the SUV.
Guerrero De Aguasvivas was carjacked less than three miles away from Crespo Hernandez’s home.
Divergent accounts emerge
Torres-Garcia, who admitted to being the masked carjacker, ordered the woman to follow the green Acura, according to the document. Investigators suspect Ocasio Justiniano drove the car and have since matched fingerprints on a mirror back to him.
Street cameras captured the Durango tailing the Acura and, by 6:30 p.m., reaching the area of Boggy Creek Road in Kissimmee, court records allege. Police would find Guerrero De Aguasvivas’ body nearby later that night.
Just before 7 p.m., Ocasio Justiniano drove back to the main road and met up with Rodriguez Bonilla, who was driving his mother’s brown Toyota Venza, the filing says. That’s when Rodriguez Bonilla gave the man a 10mm firearm, which was tied to the murder of Guerrero De Aguasvivas and Juan Luis Cintron Garcia, a 39-year-old tow truck driver killed a day before.
According to prosecutors, surveillance footage from April 10 shows Cintron Garcia parking in his driveway when two armed men — one believed to be Torres-Garcia — hopped out of a green Acura and shot at him. More than 100 rounds were fired, and one of the men retrieved something from Cintron Garcia’s truck before Acura sped off.
When questioned, Rodriguez Bonilla told agents that he drove the Venza to meet up with Torres-Garcia but denied providing him a gun, the document states. He instead claimed that he loaned Torres-Garcia $80.
Ocasio Justiniano, who court records say obtained the weapon, returned to the deserted construction site where Torres-Garcia sequestered the Homestead woman at gunpoint. The pair then doused Guerrero De Aguasvivas and the Durango in lighter fluid, shooting up the SUV before setting it ablaze.
Her remains, found in the passenger’s side of the torched car, were identified by testing DNA from blood found inside the car, according to court records.
Shortly after 7:30 p.m., surveillance footage spotted the Acura and Venza — as well as Torres-Garcia handing Rodriguez Bonilla wads of cash — at an Orlando apartment complex, the filing states. Rodriguez Bonilla admitted to receiving money but said Torres-Garcia had paid him back the $80 he had loaned him earlier. He also told agents he was wearing a ski mask at the time because he was considering riding his dirt bike that night.
READ MORE: Man admits he was paid to kidnap Homestead woman in Central Florida, FBI says
Torres-Garcia, in an interview with agents, said he met with someone who gave him an AR-15 rifle about a half-hour before the carjacking, according to court documents. He also claimed he was paid $1,500 to deliver Guerrero De Aguasvivas to “another individual.”
Arrests follow probe
Rodriguez Bonilla is the only suspect whose name hadn’t been previously associated with the investigation.
Records show that he pleaded not guilty on Thursday, a day after he was indicted and arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service. He, Torres-Garcia and Crespo Hernandez are being held at the Seminole County Jail. Ocasio Justiniano was previously in federal custody in Puerto Rico, though it’s unclear where he’s detained as of Sunday night.
Rodriguez Bonilla, who lives in Orlando, doesn’t have a lengthy criminal history. In 2023, he was arrested on a misdemeanor domestic violence battery charge, though the case doesn’t appear in Orange County court records. His only other brush with the law was in 2020, when he was accused of leaving the scene of an accident. He pleaded guilty and paid a $316 fine.
Also arrested in connection to Guerrero De Aguasvivas’ case include:
▪ Monicsabel Romero Soto, 28, the live-in girlfriend of Crespo Hernandez. Romero Soto was surveilled by federal agents after three bricks of cocaine were found in a lamp in a package sent from Puerto Rico to a St. Cloud home in Osceola County.
▪ Francisco Estrella Chicon, an Orange County deputy accused of illegally accessing the personal and professional profile information of the lead Seminole County detective on the case and sharing that information with Guerrero De Aguasvivas’ husband.
