Ocoee woman confessed to shooting husband dead in fight over affair, deputies say

An Ocoee woman who shot her husband to death at an Orange County tow yard told detectives she killed him after he threatened her with a gun during an argument over an affair he’d been having, according to an affidavit.

Gladis Bran De Gil, 42, faces a first-degree murder charge in the killing of her husband of more than two decades, 44-year-old William Gil Paredes. She is being held without bond at the Orange County Jail.

According to an affidavit by Orange County sheriff ’s Detective Brian Savelli, Bran De Gil called 911 from a tow lot on Clarcona Ocoee Road about 2:50 a.m. Tuesday and reported she had shot her husband. Rescuers arrived and found Gil Paredes lying on his back about six feet from a Ruger handgun.

A paramedic pronounced him dead at the scene.

In an interview, Bran De Gil reportedly told detectives she had recently found out her husband was cheating on her. She said she drove to the tow lot, which her husband frequents, after he did not come home from work Monday night as expected, the affidavit said.

There, she said she found her husband with his mistress. He “took off ” in a vehicle but returned and “insisted that it was not what it appeared to be,” Bran De Gil said, according to the affidavit.

Bran De Gil told detectives the two spoke for three hours before Gil Predes became “enraged” when Bran De Gil said she knew that the other woman had been cashing his paychecks, the affidavit said.

Bran De Gil said her husband then grabbed her by the hair and “smash[ed] her head into the cinderblock wall,” after which she felt “the steel of a firearm muzzle” against her neck as he threatened her, the affidavit said.

According to Savelli, Bran De Gil said her husband eased off after she started crying, at which point she ran to her vehicle and sat in it for about 20 minutes. She armed herself with a handgun, the affidavit said.

Then, she allegedly confessed, Bran De Gil emerged and shot her husband “several” times. Investigators found six bullet casings.

Bran De Gil told detectives she dropped the gun after mortally wounding her husband and drove to the family’s home in Ocoee, where she apologized to her kids and gave her daughter $16,000 in cashier’s checks, before returning to the tow yard, the affidavit states.

According to Savelli, Bran De Gil said she returned to her husband’s body because “she could not leave him there.”

Despite Bran De Gil’s claim that her husband attacked her first, Savelli concluded that based on her own account the attack was over when she “armed herself and re-engaged” her husband, killing him.

If convicted on the first-degree murder charge, Bran De Gil would face either life in prison or the death penalty.