Authorities in Florida have arrested someone in their investigation into the shocking fatal carjacking last week that was recorded by a witness and are searching for a second man identified by the victim’s brother during an “independent investigation.”
The Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma stated that Jordanish Torres-Garcia was taken into custody just after noon on Friday and that his phone number matches the person who bought a green Acura seen in the video crashing into Katherine Altagracia Guerrero De Aguasvivas’s Dodge Durango on April 11.
Lemma said investigators believe Torres-Garcia is the man seen in the witness video stepping out of the Acura, pointing a gun at Aguasvivas, and then getting into the back seat of her vehicle. Two hours later, the vehicle was found on fire in Osceola County with a body, believed to be Aguasvivas, inside. as CrimeOnline reported.
The Acura was later found abandoned in Orlando and was connected to a murder in Orange County on April 10 — the day before Aguasvivas’s murder.
Lemma referred to Torres-Garcia, 28, as a “person of interest” in the carjacking and said he had been arrested on an outstanding weapons warrant from Puerto Rico.
“He is here at our office being interviewed,” the sheriff said. ” … He’s not going to be released. He has federal charges that he’s going to be held on.”
Investigators are still waiting on phone records, computer records, and other documents they believe will solidify their case.
“When those records come back, I think it’s going to put a lot of the pieces of the puzzle that are still outstanding together,” Lemma said.
Meanwhile, Lemma presented an image from Torres-Garcia’s social media profile that seemed to show him wearing the same clothes — down to the mask — the gunman was wearing in the carjacking video.
The second man
Lemma said investigators have not yet identified the man driving the green Acura and would not guess if he is the man they’re looking for from Aguasvivas’s brother’s “investigation.” That man was identified as 27-year-old Giovany Joel Crespo Hernandez, and Lemma said the brother had identified him by accessing his sister’s iCloud account and determining that he was the last person she spoke with — by Facetime — as she was driving from her home in Homestead to Seminole County.
The brother called Hernandez, also via Facetime, and provided law enforcement with a screenshot of the man he spoke with. Lemma said investigators used a database in Pinellas County that matched him with a 2019 mugshot.
“He tells us that Giovany told him that Katherine was up here to deliver money and other stuff for a friend,” Lemma said.
Investigators conducted a search on the home where Hernandez lived with his girlfriend and found drugs and a gun, which was not the 10mm weapon used in the carjacking. Federal agents arrested the girlfriend after she accepted delivery of mailed cocaine, but Hernandez is still on the run.
The brother's "independent investigation" was described by Lemma as very unusual, and he mentioned that the communication with law enforcement has not been very open. However, he emphasized that neither the brother nor Aguasvivas's husband are considered suspects and are not facing charges.
He expressed strong doubt about their cooperation level, stating that they have never been considered persons of interest or suspects.
[Featured image: Screenshot from carjacking and Torres-Garcia's profile picture/Seminole County Sheriff's Office]