Osceola County authorities say
3 jailed after Osceola mom mistaken for intended victim
a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by a scorned woman went horribly awry when the suspects captured and killed the wrong person.
A murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by a scorned woman went horribly awry when the suspects captured and killed the wrong person, Osceola County authorities said Friday night.
Sheriff Russ Gibson said Ishnar Marie Lopez was upset that a “man she loved” was in a relationship with another woman. Gibson said Lopez hired Alexis Ramos, 22, and his girlfriend to kill the woman.
Ramos and his girlfriend tracked the woman to the Ross Dress For Less store at The Loop mall near Kissimmee. On Sunday night, they saw a woman who they thought was the intended target walking out of the store.
But the woman leaving the store — Janice Zengotita-Torres, 42 — was not who they were looking for, Gibson said.
They followed Zengotita-Torres back to her apartment, where they forced her into the back of her own car and drove to an apartment near The Mall at Millenia in Orlando.
At this point, Gibson said, the suspects realized they had the wrong person.
“However, the suspects continued with their plan of murder and tied the victim with zip ties and then [covered] her head in duct tape and garbage bags,” he said.
Ramos beat the woman until she was unconscious, Gibson said. She suffocated from the garbage bags around her head.
The suspects drove Zengotita-Torres’ vehicle with her inside and dumped her body near Tomoka Avenue and Bennett Lane in Ormond Beach late Sunday or early Monday, the sheriff said.
Spectrum cable workers found her body about 9 a.m. Monday. Zengotita-Torres’ family had reported her missing Monday morning.
The suspects dumped the victim’s vehicle near Holden Avenue in Orange County,
Gibson said.
“The heinous murder of our own citizens will not be tolerated in Osceola County,” he said.
Lopez was arrested early Friday when she tried to use an ATM card, Gibson said. Ramos and his girlfriend were later arrested at an Orange County hotel. He said all three confessed. Deputies contacted the actual intended victim of the plot and offered protective services, but she declined, Gibson said.
Zengotita-Torres came to the Kissimmee area with her husband, teenage son and mother, he said.
“She was the target of a senseless act of violence in which she was robbed of her life,” said Gibson, who choked up during the news conference.
He said he became emotional because he feels the victims’ pain.
“The family members, what they are [going through] right now, they shouldn’t have to go through,” Gibson said.
The three suspects had just moved to Central Florida from Puerto Rico around Christmas, he said. They were booked into the Osceola County Jail on murder charges.
“She was the target of a senseless act of violence in which she was robbed of her life.” Osceola County Sheriff Russ Gibson on murder victim Janice Zengotita-Torres