Emilio Nunez blamed his crime on everyone from the TV crew that filmed him shooting his ex-wife by their daughter’s grave, to police and even his victim.
But seven years after the killing, a Broward County jury on Tuesday took little more than one hour to hold Nunez responsible. They found him guilty of first-degree murder, the most serious charge against him.
After taking one of the longest and most vocal trips through the Broward justice system in recent memory, Nunez reacted to the verdict by saying he was convicted by a “kangaroo court.”
Nunez also insisted that the “conspiracy” he claims drove him to kill Maritza Martin continues and that he did not get a fair trial. The dramatic shooting caught on tape was broadcast around the world.
Visiting Broward Judge Daniel True Andrews immediately sentenced Nunez, 40, to the mandatory sentence of 25 years to life in prison. He has served seven years in jail and won’t be eligible for parole for another 17 years.
After listening to the victim’s sister, Mirna Moreno, tell him about the years of pain she has endured as a result of Martin’s murder and Nunez’s belittling of her grief, Nunez made a cursory apology for the crime.
Nunez fired 12 bullets at his ex-wife at close range, hitting her 10 times, on Jan. 18, 1993, when she unexpectedly arrived at Queen of Heaven cemetery in North Lauderdale.
Nunez told police that he killed Martin because he thought she caused the death of their pregnant daughter, Yoandra, 15. Police say the girl killed herself with a single gunshot to the heart.
“For the family of the victim, please understand me, nobody knows better than me how it is to lose someone you love. Please, I do feel sorry,” Nunez said.
After the verdict, Nunez, who has a history of psychiatric illness and of arguing heatedly with judges and his own attorneys, continued to blame others for his plight.
“You have destroyed my life,” Nunez told the judge.
“No, sir, you have destroyed your life,” Andrews replied. “Enough is enough.”
With Nunez refusing to allow the insanity defense, his attorney, Reemberto Diaz, painted a powerful picture of a troubled man who turned his grief over his daughter’s death two months earlier into an obsession.
Nunez became convinced that his daughter was abused by her stepfather and either murdered or driven to suicide by her mother — both theories that investigators reject. His daughter’s suicide note identified the father of her unborn child as a former boyfriend.
In closing arguments, Diaz tried to convince the jury that Nunez did not intend to kill his ex-wife.
Instead, Diaz said Nunez’s anger exploded and he shot her because of a combination of his grief, his belief that police were not investigating his daughter’s death properly and by the pushy questioning of Ingrid Cruz, the TV producer who was taping a segment about Nunez’s theories. Cruz testified she had no idea Martin would show up at the cemetery as she taped Nunez.
As Cruz interviewed Nunez just hours before he shot his ex-wife, Diaz said, Cruz acted as if she believed everything he was telling her and asked upsetting questions such as: “How did he feel when he saw his dead daughter in the casket?” and “What would he tell his daughter if she was still alive?”
Then the TV crew talked him into going to the cemetery so they could tape footage of him putting flowers on his daughter’s grave. That’s when Martin appeared and the deadly encounter occurred. The crew filmed the shooting as they ran for cover.
“There was a deliberate effort to raise the emotion to the highest possible level for the purpose of film,” Diaz said.
Nunez, a refugee who served 11 years in a Cuban prison for alleged crimes against the government, was driven to the edge, Diaz said.
Nunez learned of his daughter’s death only by accident when a friend called him two days after she died and just an hour before her funeral, Diaz said, and his ex-wife had not informed him. His ex-wife had previously been investigated for child abuse when she hit Yoandra with a belt.
“You shouldn’t tempt or push a desperate man. Ingrid Cruz did exactly that,” Diaz said.
But prosecutor Tim Donnelly said that Cruz did not provoke Nunez and that Nunez manipulated Cruz by lying to her about key aspects of his daughter’s death.
“The conduct of the TV reporter, the father of the fetus, they may be questions we have but they are not elements of the crime,” he said.
Nunez was the person who fired 10 bullets into Martin and he did it after brooding about his rage at his ex-wife for weeks, Donnelly said.
While Nunez insisted he wanted the truth, Donnelly portrayed him as a controlling person who killed when he realized that police were not blindly following his theories. Their investigation was still under way when Nunez killed Martin.
“He doesn’t want the truth, he wants justice — his justice,” Donnelly said.
Acknowledging only his grief and his years of hatred for his ex-wife, Nunez intentionally killed for revenge, Donnelly said.
“Maritza Martin, has she not any grief? Has she not any suffering?” Donnelly shouted, his voice cracking with emotion. “She’s lost the daughter that she raised, that [Nunez] had no contact with.”
Outside the courtroom, Moreno said she hopes the long-awaited verdict in the case will help her to begin to get over her sister’s brutal murder.
“I need to forgive him, I need to get on with my life,” Moreno said. “God will help me one day to forgive him.”
Paula McMahon can be reached at pmcmahon@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4533.
