By Dave Andrusko
Following a three-month trial in the U.S. District Court of Puerto Rico, former Olympic boxer Félix Verdejo-Sánchez was convicted Friday of kidnapping his pregnant girlfriend and murdering her and her unborn child by tossing her off a bridge into a lagoon in Puerto Rico. Allegedly 27-year-old Keishla Rodríguez Ortez refused to get an abortion.
A Puerto Rican jury “found Félix Verdejo Sánchez guilty of kidnapping resulting in the death of a pregnant woman who disappeared on April 29, 2021, shortly after her family said she was supposed to meet the former Olympic boxer to share that she was expecting his child, according to court filings,” Andrea Salcedo reported for the Washington Post. “Verdejo was also found guilty of the death of an unborn child,” Salcedo added. “The jury, which deliberated for three days, could not reach a unanimous verdict for a charge of carjacking that resulted in the death of a person and another charge of possession of a weapon during a violent crime.”
Prosecutors said Verdejo-Sanchez faces a mandatory life sentence for each conviction. His sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 3.
Reporting for Fox News, Danielle Wallace wrote that “Prosecutors reportedly relied on testimony from more than 30 witnesses, including Verdejo-Sánchez’s codefendant, Luis Antonio Cádiz-Martínez” [].
Federal prosecutors said Verdejo-Sánchez teamed up with Cádiz-Martínez on the morning of the murder before heading to a meeting point, where the former Olympian lured Rodríguez Ortiz out of her Kia Forte and into his Dodge Durango. Cádiz-Martínez testified that’s where the victim presented Verdejo-Sánchez with a positive pregnancy test, the Washington Post reported.
He further testified that Verdejo-Sánchez then punched Rodríguez Ortiz and injected her with a substance that Cádiz-Martínez believed to be heroin.
He said they both then tied her limbs to a cement block and threw her off the busy Teodoro Moscoso bridge into the San José Lagoon in broad daylight.
Federal prosecutors said Verdejo-Sánchez “jumped into the lagoon in order to finish murdering both victims.” A pathologist testified that Rodríguez was still alive when she was thrown into the lagoon.
Days later Cádiz-Martínez provided the location of her body in an anonymous 911 call. “Cádiz-Martínez, who prosecutors said the former boxer hired to help carry out the premeditated attack, pleaded guilty last year to carjacking resulting in the death of a person and an unborn child and is due to be sentenced in August,” according to Wallace.
Reporting from inside the courtroom the Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Día wrote that “Verdejo remained expressionless as the jury’s verdict was read, while Rodríguez’s family hugged and cried.”