SUBURBAN WEST PALM BEACH, FL -- For Carmen Cortes, the last few days have been bitter-sweet.
“We found him, we have him at least but we were hoping he was alive,” she said.
She shares photos of her cousin, Jose Gonzalez, who she reported missing in August when he didn't pick up his niece from the airport.
“He loved her so much, I mean, we knew something wrong had to happen in order for him to do that,” said Cortes.
Since then, Palm Springs Police and now the Sheriffs Office have kept the pressure on suspects. Three of them are in custody.
Jose Ramirez is charged with armed kidnapping.
Pedro Santiago-Vega is facing felony murder and Freddy Silvagnoli is charged with serving as an accessory to the crime after the fact.
Statements given to detectives by informants and suspects detail how Gonzalez and his girlfriend at the time, Jiselle Wooley, were taken to a home on Bertha Street. Wooley survived but Gonzalez was tied to a chair and gagged.
“The male victim was tortured. He was doused with gasoline. He was told he was going to be set on fire. He wasn’t,” said Lt. Mike Wallace with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Violent Crimes Division.
Reports say he was shot and buried behind the garage.
Investigators were told that the body was moved to a location on Nash Trail two days after the murder. An informant came forward and told them where to find it.
Finding the body was the turning-point for the investigation, evidence that encouraged suspects to confess.
For Cortes, who will now only see her cousin in photos, finding his body was only the beginning.
“Very unfair. I want every one of them caught to pay for what they did to my cousin. He didn’t deserve to die like that,” she said.
Detectives believe this all happened over $15 thousand dollars.
They expect to make more arrests in this case.
For now Ramirez and Santiago-Vega are being held without bond. Silvagnoli will be on house arrest if he can post his $500,000 bond.
