MIAMI – An 11-year-old murder case in which a woman accused of agreeing to kill her ex-boyfriend in South Florida is nearing closure for a family awaiting justice.
It is about the murder of Richard Lazzaro Vassallo, who was 25 at the time and died in a bloody incident in July 2012 at Southwest 216th Street and 98th Court in Cutler Bay.
A new hearing took place this Thursday and the victim’s mother re-lived the pain of the loss. Very distressed, Mayra Perez could not hold back tears and had to leave the courtroom where the third day of the trial of Danieles de la Caridad Fonseca, the woman accused of murdering her son, is taking place.
Fonseca continued to testify this Thursday. According to authorities, he offered to marry and pay another defendant, José MartÃn Pérez-Sanchez, to receive permanent resident status in exchange for committing the crime.
Both are charged with first-degree murder in Vassallo’s death.
Mayra Perez says these have been extremely difficult years and now she only hopes that justice will be done. “Partly, no one will return my son to me, but I am going to close a phase of this suffering. It is worth giving it to them, it is a conclusion that will keep us calm,” he Told.
According to officials, both the suspects confessed to their crime when arrested. However, in court this Thursday, the defendant said he was pressured into confessing by the officer in charge of the case at the time.
“I said, but it was not true. It was part of the plan that Pimentel told me that I had to admit, what to say (…) when he asked me to help him and he Was going”, he signaled.
Court documents indicate that the defendant, then 21, took Vassallo to a desolate area, where he and Pérez-Sanchez allegedly killed her.
All this time, the family says, there have been endless prayers for justice.
The trial of the second defendant is set for March 5.
