‘El Tigre’ gunned down a man at a Broward bar, cops say. Why was the case dropped?
In 2007, a man known as “El Tigre” gunned down a customer at a Fort Lauderdale sports bar. Police caught the elusive suspect during a traffic stop last year.
But this week, Broward prosecutors opted not to pursue a case against him, records show.
Jose Wilson PadillaPadilla, 42, was arrested in February 2023 when a deputy in Florida’s Panhandle pulled over a Nissan Altima that had crossed a double yellow line. During the traffic stop, deputies learned that Padilla-Padilla
was wanted for an Oct. 20, 2007, murder under the alias Wilson Padilla-Diaz.
Padilla-Padilla was accused of being “El Tigre,” the suspected triggerman in the shooting death of 28-year-old Wilson Zelaya, who was killed inside the International Sports Bar at 3927 SW 16th St. in Fort Lauderdale.
Zelaya was playing video games in a back corner of the bar when “El Tigre” confronted him and shot him multiple times, including in the chest, according to Fort Lauderdale police reports. Zelaya was dead when police arrived.
In a memo Wednesday, prosecutor Pascalle Achille said a single witness had given a sworn statement identifying the shooter as a man named Wilson Padilla Diaz. Police were initially unable to obtain a photo of “El Tigre,” but when they did, the witness identified him as the shooter.
At least nine people were at the club at the time of the shooting, according to Fort Lauderdale police reports. But only two reported witnessing the gunfire.
One witness described “El Tigre” as a man with a tear-drop tattoo. Another identified “El Tigre” as Wilson Padilla-Diaz and said Zelaya was shot after announcing that he wanted to kill “El Tigre’s” brother “Joe” for starting a relationship with his girlfriend.
As tension rose, Zelaya armed himself with Corona beer bottles, the reports state. That’s when “El Tigre” fired multiple shots — and “Joe” kicked the victim twice. The pair then left the bar.
Prosecutors, the memo says, have tried to locate the witness, but his whereabouts are unknown because he’s an undocumented immigrant. No one else has come forward with information about Zelaya’s killing.
At the scene, investigators collected three .25caliber bullet casings, a
pair of sunglasses, beer bottles, Styrofoam cups and cigarette butts, according to the reports.
But the forensic evidence didn’t link PadillaPadilla to the shooting — and a gun was never recovered, Achille’s memo says
Information provided by Assistant Public Defender Tayron Lopez, who represented Padilla-Padilla, also raised doubt as to whether he was even in the U.S. at the time, Achille said.
Lopez presented prosecutors with documentation — including a birth certificate, Mexican driver’s license and work registration from 2003 — that shows Padilla-Padilla wasn’t in the country at the time of the killing.
“Notably, based on the documentation provided by the defense Mr. Jose Wilson Padilla was never known by the name Wilson Padilla Diaz,” Achille said in the document.
The records also show that Padilla-Padilla entered the U.S. in 2001 but was later denied entry in 2005 and 2010, the memo states. The Miami Herald reached out to Lopez but hadn’t heard back as of Friday afternoon.
In 2021, fingerprints provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement turned out to be a match to Padilla-Padilla, according to the police reports. The investigation also uncovered that Padilla-Padilla had applied for a U.S. visa with a Honduran passport — and had repeatedly entered the country, being arrested and deported each time.