Grisly End for Good Samaritan, Woman in Dispute

Placido Moreno-Torres charged with double murder
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 21, 2016 7:39 AM CDT
Grisly End for Good Samaritan, Woman in Dispute
Placido Moreno-Torres, 47   (Lee County Police)

A 20-year-old father-to-be was only trying to break up an argument between his neighbor and neighbor's wife in Lehigh Acres, Fla., on Saturday. Now two of the three are dead and the third is charged with double murder. Authorities say Ricardo Vaca—who was married May 29—returned home from a Father's Day celebration with his sister around 9:30pm and saw his neighbor's wife clinging to a door frame as her husband tried to drag her into the garage, reports the News-Press. Vaca said he wanted to check on 44-year-old Amparo Moreno and ran over to her driveway. Soon after, Vaca's sister heard multiple gunshots and found her brother and Moreno lying riddled with bullets on the driveway, police say. As she tried to help, Placido Moreno-Torres, 47, held a silver revolver to her forehead, according to a police report.

She "began to plead for her life, at which time she dropped to the ground, rolled down the driveway, and ran for safety," the report says. When Moreno-Torres took off on foot, "we all got together to see what we can do but we couldn't save any lives," a neighbor tells WPTV. They drove the victims to an intersection, where they met with paramedics, but both were pronounced dead. Moreno-Torres—who was arrested early Sunday with "numerous cuts and abrasions covering his body, suggesting he'd been traveling through dense foliage"—faces two counts of homicide and one count of aggravated assault. Meanwhile, family members are mourning Vaca and the fact that his daughter will grow up without him. "He was an amazing person, always happy and trying to make people smile," a cousin tells the News-Press. "We as a family are devastated." (At least two other Good Samaritans have lost their lives in 2016.)

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