Five years after double homicide near strip club, jury convicts the man who pulled the trigger
WEST PALM BEACH — Five years after a late-night shooting left two dead and three others injured at a suburban West Palm Beach intersection, jurors convicted the Lake Worth Beach man they believe pulled the trigger.
Prosecutors say Hipolito Jesus Fraguela, 38, killed Justin Moyer on June 4, 2018, after a dispute over money caused their relationship to sour.
Moyer spent the evening with friends at Spearmint Rhino Gentleman’s Club before he and four others piled into a car and began to drive away. One of the car's occupants said a man, who she later identified as Fraguela, pulled up beside them in a white SUV, aimed a gun at Moyer and said: "This is for you."
The gunman fatally shot Moyer and 20-year-old Crystal Rivera and wounded three others before driving away from the intersection of Okeechobee Boulevard and Military Trail.
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Prosecutors say gunman wanted 'revenge' over theft of marijuana
None of the surviving witnesses could immediately identify the gunman, though investigators honed in on a suspect with the help of anonymous tipsters. They pointed to a recent dispute between Moyer and Fraguela, who reportedly sold drugs together.
Moyer's then-girlfriend told detectives she believed Moyer had stolen from Fraguela's drug supplier. When questioned by police, Fraguela also said he and Moyer had known one another, though he said they stopped speaking six months before Moyer's murder.
Prosecutors argued that Fraguela killed Moyer to punish him for stealing $1,700 worth of marijuana from him. In her opening remarks, Assistant State Attorney Jo Wilensky told jurors that Fraguela drove to the Spearmint Rhino in search of Moyer and waited, making note of which car Moyer got into and where he sat.
"He got his revenge when he fired into a car," Wilensky said.
She and Assistant State Attorney Adrienne Ellis used geolocation data, surveillance-camera footage and cellphone activity to refute Fraguela's claims that he was at home, asleep with his girlfriend, at the time of the murder.
Defense attorney Mattie Fore called the evidence "weak, speculative, and susceptible to innocent explanations," and insisted that detectives never identified the real gunman. She reminded jurors that police recovered no gun, fingerprint, video or DNA evidence to connect Fraguela to the crime.
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Victims' mothers cried upon hearing guilty verdict
The mothers of Rivera and Moyer sat next to one another in the courtroom Thursday afternoon and hoped for a guilty verdict. Within hours, they got it. Jurors found Fraguela guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.
"We just cried," said Moyer's mother, Valli. "It hurt. It hurt all over again, because it honestly feels like I've been living June 4 for over five years."
The State Attorney's Office announced shortly after Fraguela's arrest that it would seek the death penalty upon conviction, but reversed course in 2021. Fraguela will return to court on Aug. 17 to be sentenced. Before Circuit Judge Sarah Willis passes the sentence, Moyer's and Rivera's loved ones will have an opportunity to speak.
"For the first time, I feel relief, like I can breathe," Moyer's mother said.
Her son would have turned 39 Friday.
Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post, a member of the USA TODAY Network. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Jurors convict Lake Worth Beach man of murder for killing two in 2018
