A jury found Puerto Rican ex-pugilist Félix Verdejo guilty on two counts related to the kidnapping and death of the young Keishla Rodríguezwho was pregnant when she was murdered in April 2021.
The verdict in this controversial case, which shook Puerto Rican society, came after almost a month of trial and three days of intense jury deliberations, which lasted until Friday night.
The three women and the nine men that made up the jury determined that together with co-defendant Luis Antonio Cádiz, he committed the kidnapping that resulted in the death of Rodríguez, who was a partner of the ex-boxer, and their unborn child.
Verdejo faces mandatory life in prison and the reading of his sentence is scheduled for next november 3as reported by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in a statement.
The jury found the former boxer guilty of kidnapping resulting in the death of a person and death of an unborn child, while failing to reach a unanimous verdict on charges of armed robbery and possession of a firearm during the commission. of a crime
The Prosecutor’s Office explained in its note that on April 29, 2021 Verdejo executed “a premeditated plan” to assassinate Rodríguez and their unborn child by luring the young woman into his vehicle with the help of Cádiz.
The expugile hit Rodríguez, he injected her with drugs and then tied her up with metal wire to a cement block, to later throw it into the Laguna San José from the Teodoro Moscoso bridge, in the metropolitan area.
On leaving the Federal Court, Keishla’s father, José Antonio Rodríguez, said that “truth always prevails” and what Verdejo he will live the rest of his life thinking about what he did to his daughterbeing that “his worst sentence”.
“We strongly support the family of Keishla Rodríguez and all those in the community who sought justice for this senseless, cruel and heinous act of premeditated violence,” said US Attorney for Puerto Rico W. Stephen Muldrow.
The FBI was in charge of the investigation with the close collaboration and support of the Puerto Rico Department of Public Safety, the island’s Police Bureau, and the Department of Justice.
“There are damages that can never be repaired, not even with a fair verdict. In cases like these, all we can do is give everything in the search for justice,” said the special agent in charge of the FBI in San Juan, Joseph González.