Watch CBS News

Daughter, 17, Boyfriend, 18, Charged With Father's Murder

Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Jacqueline Avila wept the tears Monday of a mother whose child is charged in connection with the murder of her father, Avila's ex-husband.

"This is horrible," said Avila, her voice choking.

Eveline Gainza, 17, was implicit, police say, in the murder of her dad, 63-year-old Evilio Gainza.

Eveline's boyfriend, Demar Turruellas is charged with committing the actual act, at the dad's home on Southwest 141st Street in Miami-Dade last Monday night - the body not discovered until Thursday, decomposing, after a relative asked police to check on Gainza's welfare.

Police say Eveline stole her father's car Monday, picked up her boyfriend at her mother's Sweetwater apartment where they were staying, and drove him to the father's home, where Turruellas went upstairs and shot the man in the back multiple times.

There was bad blood between the girl's dad and the boyfriend of whom he did not approve.

"They were having tremendous problems, they were having tremendous problems.  He didn't want him and her together," Jacqueline Avila said.

The day Gainza's body was discovered, police stopped his daughter and the boyfriend in the dead man's car.

They found a semi-automatic pistol in the car that investigators say ballistics later proved was the murder weapon.

Turruellas gave what police say was a "self-serving confession," implicating his girlfriend in the murder.

She did confess, investigators say, to helping cover her father's body, clean up the blood and dispose of spent bullet casings and other evidence.

Gainza, a juvenile, will likely be tried as an adult.  She is being held in juvenile lockup.

"My daughter was a beautiful person, is a beautiful person," Avila said.  Asked what could prompt her daughter to allegedly cooperate in the murder of her own father, Avila replied, crying "I can't fathom.  I can't fathom."

Turruellas, first charged with carrying a concealed firearm, is now being held without bail for murder.

If this Shakesperean tale seems bizarre, there is another uncanny twist: Last Monday, Turruellas allegedly fired a shot in anger through a wall at the apartment of his girlfriend's mother, and the two then left.  The dad would be killed at his home late that night.

The next morning, police arrested Turruellas on a charge of discharging a deadly missile and issued him a notice to appear in court. The arrest location? On the street, near the house where Evilio Gainza lay murdered, shot to death, in a room upstairs.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.