Fourth arrest into Homestead woman’s Central Florida fatal carjacking investigation

A man believed by investigators to be perhaps the last person a Homestead woman spoke with before she was carjacked, kidnapped and murdered in the Orlando area has been arrested.

This is the fourth arrest in a sprawling, multi-county, multi-agency investigation into the April 11 death of Katherine Altagracia Guerrero De Aguasvivas. The 31-year-old mother of two and Homestead resident was found shot to death inside her torched white Dodge Durango, which was left at a construction site in Central Florida hours after she was carjacked by a masked man pointing a semiautomatic rifle at her.

Since the investigation began, a lurid and complex story of a murder, a mysterious used car believed to be linked to several crimes, a lamp stuffed with cocaine, and a cop arrested for sharing key information about the case to the Homestead’s woman husband has unfolded.

If detectives know how Guerrero De Aguasvivas, a native of the Dominican Republic, is connected to this underworld, they haven’t said so yet.

The Seminole County Sheriff’s Office — the lead agency in the investigation — said Giovany Joel Crespo Hernandez, 27, turned himself in at a Sanford prison Monday night on an active warrant for fentanyl trafficking and marijuana possession with intent to sell.

Based on cell phone records obtained by Guerrero De Aguasvivas’ brother, detectives believe Crespo Hernandez spoke with her as she was driving on I-4 through the downtown Orlando area before she was ambushed. She was stopped at a red light near Winter Springs, a bedroom community in Seminole County, just northeast of Orlando’s Orange County.

Guerrero De Aguasvivas’ husband told investigators his wife made the roughly four-hour drive from Homestead to Central Florida that day to visit family, but her brother, Luis Fernando Abreu, has since told detectives he thinks she was there to “deliver money and other stuff.”

Home raid found drugs, cash, guns

Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma announced Friday that his people were looking for Crespo Hernandez.

Seminole County deputies raided the Casselberry home he lives in with his girlfriend, Monicsabel Romero Soto, late last week. There, detectives found fentanyl, marijuana, digital scales, more than $13,000, two Glock firearms, multiple cellphones and expensive jewelry, according to an April 18 criminal complaint.

A Toyota in the driveway had a “trap” space within the car, a ploy investigators say is used by traffickers to hide drugs.

Crespo Hernanez and Romero Soto were not at home when detectives served the search warrant, according to the complaint.

Crespo Hernandez, according to a separate federal complaint, is a known member of a drug trafficking organization and a person of interest in “a series of home invasions and homicide investigations.” The filing also states that he was the target of a Homeland Security probe in the Miami area in 2020 that led to agents seizing more than $300,000.

As the Seminole County detectives were serving the warrant, they received a call from U.S. Homeland Security Investigations agents saying that Romero Soto and another person who lives in the Casselberry home were expected to get a package of more than three kilograms of cocaine hidden in a lamp. The package was due to arrive in St. Cloud, a city in Osceola County, just south of Orlando.

The federal agents intercepted the package, which was mailed from Puerto Rico, according to a federal criminal complaint. A police dog had alerted them to the package, where 3.28 kilograms of cocaine were sealed in the lamp with caulk and nails, the complaint states.

READ MORE: Bricks of cocaine found in lamp offer clue into a Homestead woman’s deadly carjacking

A police officer dropped off the parcel at a St. Cloud house as agents staked out the area. Agents say Romero Soto was spotted repeatedly driving around the home in a white Acura SUV, presumably to ensure no law enforcement was present.

At one point, Romero Soto got out of the SUV and walked over to the package, according to the complaint. The 27-year-old told agents she came to “pick up her lamp” that she ordered on Facebook for $300.27.

Soto is now in federal custody on cocaine charges, said Lemma.

Green Acura owner arrested

On Friday, in yet another breakthrough in the case, Lemma announced the arrest of 28-year-old Jordanish Torres-Garcia, who cops say is the owner of the green 2002 Acura involved in Guerrero De Aguasvivas’ carjacking.

According to a cellphone video recorded by a person the car behind her Durango, a man exited the Green Acura, walked up to the Durango and pointed his rifle at her through the driver’s-side window.

The car also is connected with the shooting death of 29-year-old Juan Luis Cintron Garcia in Orange County.

Cintron Garcia was killed the day before Aguasvivas was murdered, detectives say. Detectives say he is a tow truck driver who towed the green Acura from an Orange County apartment complex parking lot on March 19.

Lemma told reporters last week that Torres-Garcia bought the car from a dealership called Buy Here, Pay Here through Facebook Marketplace, and that the clothes he’s photographed wearing in his profile picture match ones worn by the masked gunman seen in the cellphone video.

Torres-Garcia was arrested last week on an existing federal weapons warrant as he was walking into an Orange County business, Lemma said.

The other connection between the two murders: Hundreds of spent 10 millimeter shell casings found at both scenes, detectives say.

Orange County deputy’s arrest

The first arrest in the case was an Orange County Sheriff’s Office deputy who investigators say illegally accessed the personal and professional profile of a Seminole County detective investigating the case. He sent that information to Guerrero De Aguasvivas’ husband, Miguel Angel Aguasvivas.

According to detectives, Aguasvivas called the deputy’s wife, who is a childhood friend, when he was driving to Seminole County the night his wife was murdered to answer questions in person about the case.

Deputy Francisco Estrella Chicon was arrested April 14 on charges of the use of a two-way device in the commission of a felony, eavesdropping, invasion of privacy and accessing a computer or electronic device without authorization. He has entered a written plea of not guilty and was released on a total bond of $15,000 last Thursday.

Investigators say that Estrella Chicon not only illegally accessed the detective’s information using a database only police are authorized to log onto, he called the detective using a bogus name, saying he was an Orange County detective related to Guerrero De Aguasvivas.

He video recorded the conversation on his cell phone and sent it to Aguasvivas through Whatsapp, according to his arrest report. Detectives say they found the recording after Aguasvivas gave them his cell phone.

Estrella Chicon was hired by Orange County in September 2022 and was never a detective, his agency said.

He has been relieved of all law enforcement duties without pay “while the criminal case is underway,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.