- April 25, 2024
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Three people have been arrested for the murder of the 42-year-old woman whose body was dumped on Bennett Lane last week and ultimately was not the intended victim of the suspects.
Janice Marie Zengotita-Torres was mistaken for another woman after she left the Ross Dress For Less store in a Kissimmee shopping center. The three suspects, 35-year-old Ishnar Marie Lopez-Ramos, 22-year-old Alexis Ramos-Rivera and his girlfriend Glorianmarie Quinones-Montes, 22, followed Zengotita-Torres to her apartment home thinking she was the intended target, a woman who was in a relationship with a man Lopez-Ramos loved, according to Osceola County deputies.
In a press conference held on Jan. 11 and posted online by WFTV Channel 9, Osceola County Sheriff Russell Gibson said the suspects apprehended Zengotita-Torres at her own apartment complex's parking lot, forcing her inside the back of her own vehicle and driving to a nearby bank, where they again forced her to give them her ATM card and pin code.
Afterward, they drove Zengotita-Torres to an apartment near the Mall at Millenia in Orlando, where Lopez-Ramos realized they had the wrong person. Despite that, they continued to bind her hands with zip ties and cover her head with garbage bags and duct tape, Ramos-Rivera beating her until she became unconscious. Gibson said Zengotita-Torres died by suffocation.
“The heinous murder of one of our own citizens will not be tolerated in Osceola County,” Gibson said.
Her body would later be found on Bennett Lane in Ormond Beach early Monday morning on Jan. 8, over 80 miles away from the Ross store she was first spotted at. Left to remember her is her husband, 14-year-old son and her mother, all who moved from Puerto Rico over a year ago to start a new life in Florida. Gibson got emotional during the press conference when talking about them.
“They were remarkable, strong and instrumental in catching the suspects,” Gibson said.
The three suspects were caught after Lopez-Ramos used the victim's ATM card on Jan. 11. All of them are facing premeditated murder charges.
Gibson called Zengotita-Torres a true victim — one who did not know the suspects and was truly innocent.
“I get emotional because it just touches me so deeply that one of our citizens was killed in such a manner over a mistaken identification, and in the end it appears to be a lovers triangle," Gibson said. "Wow.”
