‘Team Clemente’ rolls out slain man’s car for showcase
LANTANA — Pedro Juan Clemente Verdejo spent years tricking out his blue 1993 Honda Civic, welding the roll cage and tinkering with the mechanics.
The Palm Springs man hadn’t quite perfected the details when he was killed in September, said his wife , Margarit a Cle - mente. But she knew it was time to roll it out of the garage.
On Saturday night, Pedro’s beloved blue Civic was parked in front of the stands at Palm Beach International Raceway west of Jupiter. Event coordinators waived the usual fees for showing a car, Clemente said.
Hundreds passed by, Clemente said, stopping for pictures and asking about the photo memorial to her husband.
It would have been his 37th birthday.
”It was a very emotional moment,” Clemente said. “But I couldn’t even cry. It was about him.”
Clemente was shot and killed Sept. 4 outside a Lantana home. Town police say another man, 27-year-old Ramon Javier Rivera Rodriguez, survived being shot in the leg.
Tips still roll in about the killing, police said Wednesday, which is unusual this far removed from the crime, but nothing substantial has come from them. Police still consider the case active.
The shooter, they said, likely had his or her face covered.
The family used to be regulars at racing events through- out Palm Beach County, Clemente said, but since Pedro’s death, “it’s been so hard. I couldn’t even go to places we used to enjoy as a family.”
Pedro’s birthday was the first they’d been back to the west Jupiter track. The family sported “Team Clemente” shirts with Pedro’s face on the sleeve.
“I couldn’t, not even the kids could, shed a tear,” Clemente said. “And that’s exactly how he’d want to see us.”