Boyfriend hid for 17 days after teen found dead, Florida cops say. Now he’s charged
A 21-year-old has been charged with murder after Florida authorities said he shot his teenage girlfriend and hid from law enforcement for weeks.
Sofia Lugo, 17, was found shot to death at her boyfriend’s family home in Ocala shortly before 1 a.m. on Dec. 10, according to a news release from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies found her in a pool of blood with a gunshot wound to her throat, according to a probable cause affidavit. It appeared she had been shot at close range.
Lugo had a fresh tattoo on her arm that said “Saul,” for her boyfriend, Saul Garcia Macias.
His attorney information is not available in court records.
The night of Dec. 10
Garcia Macias’ mother told investigators her son woke her in the middle of the night and said masked men had broken into the home and shot his girlfriend. She said she was going to call 911, but her son asked her to not before fleeing the residence, deputies said.
As he left, he said he had “done something” to Lugo, witnesses told deputies.
When his mother entered the bedroom where Lugo was, she found the teen shot.
Law enforcement began looking for Garcia Macias, urging the 21-year-old to turn himself in and asking for the community’s help locating him.
Lugo and Garcia Macias had been dating for about a month but had known each other for nearly a decade, family told investigators.
Seventeen days after Lugo’s death, Garcia Macias called detectives from a Circle K convenience store in a nearby city and said he heard they were looking for him but didn’t know why.
When he went in for an interview at the station, he waived his Miranda rights and told investigators he had been lost in the woods since the day Lugo had been found dead.
He told investigators he and Lugo were in his bedroom and “things between them were going good” the night she died, according to the affidavit.
He said people were coming over to drop off drugs, then they killed Lugo while he was in the bathroom, deputies said.
Text message records and interviews with other individuals showed two people were planning to drop off tattooing equipment to Lugo, but they left because she stopped responding.
After speaking with Garcia Macias, deputies arrested him and charged him with second-degree murder.
He’s being held without bond, as detectives said they were concerned he would try to flee the country.
‘Justice for Sofia’
In an obituary, Lugo’s family said she had a “vibrant spirit and creative soul.”
She turned 17 a little over a month before she was killed.
“An artist at heart, Sofi possessed an innate talent for drawing, a passion she hoped to channel into a career by opening her own tattoo shop after graduating from high school,” her family wrote. “Her creative flair extended to her love of doing hair and makeup. Sofi could often be found singing and writing songs, pouring her emotions into her music.”
Lugo’s family held a vigil for her the day Garcia Macias was arrested, chanting “justice for Sofia.”
“She’ll probably be telling us to be strong,” Lugo’s aunt Andrea Lugo-Aguierre told WFTV. “She wouldn’t want us crying. She wouldn’t want to see us in pain or hurting because she’s in a better place.”
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