By Grace Jidoun and Nyamekye Daniel
New details have emerged about the deadly carjacking and kidnapping of a woman captured on video during rush hour at a red light in Florida.
Footage shows Katherine Altagracia Guerrero De Aguasvivas, 31, stopped at the intersection in Winter Springs, Florida, when a masked man toting a long gun approached her vehicle and pointed the weapon at the driver’s side window before getting in the backseat on Thursday April 11 around 5:30 p.m.
“Has a machine gun and got the guy to open the door and pointed a gun at him,” a 911 caller said.
Police believe De Aguasvivas’ body was found scorched in her burnt-out Dodge Durango late Thursday in an adjacent county – Osceola. So far, authorities have not pointed to evidence that another person was in the car when the woman was carjacked.
Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma told reporters that although dental records and DNA results have not come back, he is confident the remains discovered in the SUV near multiple gunshot casings belong to the kidnapped woman. However, the mystery surrounding De Aguasvivas’ death thickens as a sheriff’s deputy’s arrest and another murder raises new questions about the daylight kidnapping while authorities work to piece together the shocking crime.
The 31-year-old woman reportedly drove nearly 300 miles from Homestead to central Florida that Thursday. Aguasvivas and her husband own a barbershop and hair salon. He told authorities that she traveled to the area right outside of Orlando to visit family. However, police have not been able to interview any of De Aguasvivas’ relatives in the tri-county area.
Detectives believe the green Acura targeted the woman who called her husband right before the kidnapping because she feared the vehicle was following her. De Aguasvivas’ husband told her not to leave the car, and no reports were made to law enforcement.
“We do believe the occupants of the green Acura, both driver and the person who got into the Durango, knew exactly who they were following,” Lemma said during a press conference on Monday.
While the sheriff says that the husband is being cooperative with police, he is now under a new microscope after detectives discovered that he was being fed information about the crime by a sheriff’s deputy in Orange County, where Orlando is located.
The case crosses over into Orange County since authorities also linked the Acura to an April 10 shooting in Orlando. A car matching its description was seen leaving the scene of the murder of tow truck driver Juan Luis Citron Garcia, who was shot at least 100 times, according to reports.
On March 19, the same vehicle was towed from an Orlando apartment complex for being illegally parked. It didn’t have a tag or ownership title. It is unclear when and how the Acura was removed from the lot where it was towed in March.
The carjacking woman’s husband reportedly has a childhood friend who works for Orange County Sheriff’s Office. Deputy Francisco Estrella, 33, was arrested for leaking confidential information to Aguasvivas, according to local reports.
Estrella reportedly made two recorded calls to the Seminole detective investigating the carjacking using an alias “Francisco Archuela” and sent them to the husband along with a photograph from the detective’s driver’s license profile.
Estrella has since bonded out of jail and is suspended without pay while his case is pending.
“When you look at this thing, it’s right out of a television show,” Lemma told reporters.
Carjackings and car thefts are up significantly nationwide compared with the number of incidents before the pandemic, according to a crime trend report from the Council on Criminal Justice.
In another recent incident, a “good Samaritan” stepped in to confront a carjacker at a North Carolina Burger King last month and paid for it with his life. In shocking video footage, North Carolina Department of Transportation worker Jonathan Adam Lecompte, 38, attempts to thwart a car thief only to get viciously mowed down in broad daylight seconds later. The suspect Ricky Driggers, 28, is facing murder charges.
