Juan Trinidad, the 26-year-old cousin of retired boxer Felix Trinidad, was found guilty on Friday of first-degree murder for the killing of Renéé Reyes Tejada with several machete blows to the back of his head in December 2002.
Public prosecutors felt the crime was cruel and vile and will be requesting the maximum sentence possible. Trinidad remains in custody and will be sentenced on January 16, 2004. Trinidad's lawyers argued that the crime was in self defence. However the case against him was strong.
Unknown to Trinidad, Naomi Martinez, a neighbour, saw the horrible crime from her window. She described in detail how the pleading victim struggled to get away as he crawled on his forearms, only for Trinidad to follow him and start hacking away violently and with excessive force at the back of the victim's head with a machete.
After receiving the deadly wounds, Renéé was covered with a green carpet and another red one. Trinidad then buried the body in a shallow grave and covered the victim in lime. The Judge did not feel these were the actions of a man who was claiming the crime was self defence. These in fact were the actions of a cold-blooded killer who didn't show proper restrain when arguing with his victim, a gardener.