SANFORD, Fla. — In a Friday press conference, Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma laid out the complicated investigation that has led to the apprehension of a person of interest in the carjacking and killing of 31-year-old Katherine Altagracia Guerrero De Aguasvivas.
Several witnesses gave similar descriptions of Guerrero De Aguasvivas' abduction at gunpoint just after 5:30 p.m. on April 11 at the intersection of East Lake Drive and Tuskawilla Road in Winter Springs. Her body was found shot and inside a burning vehicle the next day in a remote area of Osceola County.
The individual identified as a person of interest in the case, Jordanish Torres-Garcia, 28, was arrested Friday on an unrelated federal warrant as he walked into a business on Orange Avenue in Orange County, Lemma said.
During the press conference, Lemma explained that a number of events had taken place since April 11 that appear to fill in some of the gaps in investigators' understanding of what happened to Guerrero De Aguasvivas. They also led to identifying Torres-Garcia as possibly being involved in the case, Lemma said.
At the time of the carjacking, a witness showed investigators a video recording of the incident that showed a green Acura car stop behind a white Dodge Durango being driven by Guerrero De Aguasvivas. A man wearing a mask and holding what appeared to be a rifle then got out of the Acura and approached the Durango before ultimately getting inside the vehicle. Afterward, both vehicles did a U-turn on the roadway and left the scene, witnesses said.
It was the unique 2002 green Acura reportedly involved in the incident that led deputies to Torres-Garcia, Lemma said. Someone had purchased the vehicle from a "buy here, pay here" establishment, and the phone number they gave to the business matched one in an Orange County burglary report as belonging to Torres-Garcia, Lemma said.
Also part of Lemma's update on the case was the arrest of a Casselberry woman who reportedly was the girlfriend of a man thought to be the last to speak to Guerrero De Aguasvivas on the phone before her death.
The woman, who was only identified as "Soto" by Lemma, was taken into custody by federal officials after allegedly receiving three kilograms of cocaine that was sent through the mail. Lemma said Seminole County investigators had severed a search warrant on the home Soto shared with Giovany Joel Crespo Hernandez, 27, when they were told about her arrest.
During that search, Lemma said fentanyl and a gun — which investigators do not believe was connected to the carjacking — were found.
Lemma said Guerrero De Aguasvivas' brother accessed her Facetime records while conducting "his own independent investigation." The brother gave investigators a screenshot of the man Guerrero De Aguasvivas appears to have last spoken to before the carjacking, and after running it through a database of booking photos, Hernandez was identified with 98.6% certainty from a 2019 photo from the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
Hernandez, Lemma said, has not yet been located.
"He is on the run," Lemma said. "We want to know where he's at and we want to bring him into custody."
While there has been movement in the case that has led to a person of interest and names of others who may be connected to what happened, no one has been directly charged the a crime connected to Guerrero De Aguasvivas' carjacking and death.
Anyone with information on the individuals believed to be connected to the incident, or the incident itself, are urged to contact the Seminole County Sheriff's Office.