Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Records reveal witness account
Co-worker: Lachazo looked ‘possessed’ after Boca woman’s killing
BOCA RATON — A deliveryman who is accused of beating and setting a Boca Raton woman on fire looked “possessed” after the killing, the man’s co-worker says.
He described how Jorge Luis Dupre Lachazo exited the home, leaving behind an injured and burning Evelyn Udell. Lachazo’s eyes were wide open and his facial expression seemed different from what it had looked like just minutes before. “That wasn’t him,” the co-worker said.
David Gonzalez recalled these details to police in an interview hours after the attack took place on Aug. 19. Gonzalez was the driver of the truck Lachazo, 21, arrived in that morning.
Gonzalez’s interview was recently released along with other court records by the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office, giving the most detailed description yet of what the lone witness saw in the moments before and after the killing and adding weight to the theory that drug use may have played a role in the vicious crime.
He looked ‘messed up’
Gonzalez told authorities he had worked with Lachazo for only five days before the assault. His normal partner was in Cuba, he said. The two were so unacquainted that Gonzalez said he did not even know Lachazo’s last name.
Gonzalez described Lachazo as looking “messed up” when he arrived to a warehouse that morning about 5 a.m. to begin loading up their truck. “He looked like he was partying,” he said.
Gonzalez said Lachazo napped a lot during the driving they did for their first two deliveries of the morning and said very little. Nonetheless, he said Lachazo had done his job well that morning.
When the two arrived at Udell’s home shortly after 8 a.m. to deliver a new washer and dryer she’d purchased from Best Buy, Gonzalez said he did most of the talking. He described Udell as “very kind.” He said Lachazo helped him uninstall her previous washer and dryer and helped him install her new appliances and acted normal.
That all changed when Gonzalez got three repeated calls from his office because he hadn’t sent in photographs of their previously completed jobs.
Gonzalez said he left Lachazo alone with Udell while he went outside to address the calls. He didn’t think anything would go wrong. After all, he said, the job was basically done. “All she needed to do was sign the paperwork.”
‘What the hell did you do?’
While he sat in his truck making a phone call, Gonzalez said he noticed a series of odd events.
The first was a soft yell coming from the garage. He described it as the sound one might make upon seeing a roach and getting scared.
Moments later, the overhead garage door, which was open when he left, began to close. Gonzalez said he figured Lachazo had gotten the signatures and was on his way back.
Then Gonzalez heard a much louder scream.
He said he got out of the truck and went to the front door of the house, which was now locked. He knocked and called out for Lachazo. After some moments, he said Lachazo came outside with big eyes and a nervous look.
Although Lachazo still wore the same uniform he’d arrived in, which spelled out “Home Delivery Specialist” on his chest, Gonzalez said Lachazo’s face looked as if it had been completely changed in the three minutes or so since he’d left him.
Gonzalez said Lachazo repeated “let’s go” multiple times.
At first, Gonzalez said, he thought Udell might not have been happy with the job and had gotten angry with Lachazo. He said he’d experienced the anger of customers multiple times himself.
But when he told Lachazo that he wanted to go inside and see what was wrong, Lachazo closed the door and tried to stop him, continuing to tell him to leave.
When Gonzalez eventually got inside, he saw blood on the floor near the bathroom, where the two appliances had been installed. The door to the bathroom was closed and Gonzalez said he smelled smoke.
“What the hell did you do?” he recalled asking Lachazo. He said Lachazo did not respond except to repeat “let’s go.”
Instead, Gonzalez said he went outside and called his supervisor. He then called 911.
He said Lachazo remained inside for some moments, before eventually leaving the home, jumping in the delivery truck and taking off.
Gonzalez said he never tried to stop Lachazo out of fear.
In his 911 call, Gonzalez told police that Lachazo was having trouble driving the stick shift truck as he attempted to drive off.
According to police reports, officers pulled over Lachazo not far from the gated community he fled. Officers found him sweating and shaking in the front seat, his legs charred with ash.
When the ambulance arrived to Udell’s home, Gonzalez said he entered with paramedics. He saw them open the bathroom door and got a glimpse of Udell’s leg. Then smoke poured out of the room, and he was told to get out.
The next time he saw Udell, Gonzalez said, she was being whisked out of the house on a gurney.
‘You should check him’
Questions about Lachazo’s drug use came up repeatedly in Gonzalez’s interview with authorities, but Gonzalez says he didn’t know Lachazo long enough to say for sure that he used drugs.
In the interview, Gonzalez said he did not see Lachazo use any drugs on the day of the delivery, only mentioning a vape pen that he occasionally puffed from between jobs.
However, near the end of his time with police, Gonzalez seems to suggest drugs may have played a role.
“Drug test Jorge and then you’re going to know,” he says. When a detective presses him for more information, Gonzalez says he doesn’t know what, if anything, Lachazo was using.
But he maintains, “you should check him.”
In his own two-hour interview with police hours after the attack, Lachazo details a history of drug use but denies using drugs on the day of the delivery.
He also references “people” whom he started purchasing drugs from in high school and who later told him to do things, “like robbery, like stealing.”
Lachazo alleged these same people threatened to kill his mother and says they made him make a choice between Udell and his mom.
However, in a collection of over 20 jail phone calls released by the State Attorney’s Office, the “people” don’t come up directly.
Most of the calls from Lachazo are made to his mother and his girlfriend and the conversations consist of his asking for forgiveness and reporting the details of his life in jail as he awaits trial.
In one call, Lachazo tells his mother to “look around well when you’re in the street.”
His mother describes being hounded by television news stations outside of her Hialeah home. Later she asks about the story he told police.
“Why did you say you did that for me?” she says.
Lachazo quickly stops the conversation, reminding his mother that his phone calls are recorded.
“Here they listen to everything,” he says.