Osceola Sheriff Detectives have reported that Janice Zengotita-Torres, 42, of Kissimmee was abducted and murdered after being mistaken for a co-worker who was the intended target of a heinous murder-for-hire plot.
Osceola County Sheriff Russ Gibson said 35 year-old Ishnar Lopez Ramos hired Alexis Ramos Rivera, 22, and his girlfriend, Glorianmarie Quinones Montes, 22, to kill a woman that was in a relationship with the man she loved, but they mistakenly abducted Janice Zengotita-Torres, 42, of Kissimmee and viciously killed her instead.
“The victim was not the actual target of the murder for hire that was actually killed. It was someone else. However, the suspects continued with their plan of murder and tied the victim with zip ties and then her head in duct tape and garbage bags,” Gibson said.|
After Zengotita-Torres finished working at Ross on Sunday night she went to her home where the suspects attacked her. She was physically forced her into the trunk of her own vehicle by the suspects, then driven to an ATM where she was forced to hand over her PIN information and ATM card. Ishnar Lopez Ramos, who had hired the other two suspects to commit the murder withdrew cash from Zengotita-Torres’ account.
After leaving the ATM they drove to an apartment near the Mall at Millennia. Montes went inside the apartment while Ramos and Rivera stayed in the vehicle while Zengotita-Torres was still in trunk of her vehicle. It was then that the suspects realized that they had abducted the wrong woman, but instead of releasing her at that point, they decided to kill her anyway. They tied Zengotita-Torres with zip ties, placed a garbage bag over her head and beat her.
“The suspects showed no regard for this victim, causing her to die from suffocation because the garbage bags were wrapped around her head,” Gibson said.
From there they drove to Ormond Beach and discarded Zengotita-Torres’ body in the area of Bennett Lane where she was discovered the following morning by a Spectrum employee who was doing working near the location.
“The heinous murder of one of our own citizens will not be tolerated in Osceola County,” Gibson said.
On Thursday night Ishnar Lopez Ramos attempted using Zengotita-Torres’ ATM card to withdraw cash and was apprehended and arrested. She was wearing Zengotita-Torres’ clothing at the time. She confessed to the murder and turned in Rivera and Montes, who were then apprehended and arrested in Orange County at a hotel.
“All three confirmed that this was a murder-for-hire and that the victim was mistakenly — again, mistakenly — targeted and murdered as being the person they thought was the intended victim,” Gibson said.
Janice Zengotita-Torres had relocated to Osceola County from Puerto Rico one year ago and lived with her husband, her 14-year-old son and her mother. The three suspects charged in her death all came to Central Florida from Puerto Rico in late December, deputies said. All three have been charged with 1st-degree murder. Their criminal history in Puerto Rico has not yet been released.
Sheriff Gibson, who was clearly affected emotionally by this senseless and heinous crime, said “It was just a mistaken identity, I don’t say that lightly, that this woman lost her life for no reason. This mother, this wife, this daughter — for no reason, at all,” Gibson said.