Retrial for the murder of a young couple in the Florida Keys ends with familiar verdict

A jury on Tuesday decided that a man being retried for the shooting deaths of a Florida Keys couple over an ongoing cocaine dealing operation is guilty of first-degree murder.

The 12 jurors took 12 hours to deliberate before reaching a verdict. The case was being retried because a state appeals court ruled that a sworn statement from a jailhouse informant wasn’t allowed to be heard during the original November 2017 trial.

Jeremy Macauley was convicted of shooting Carlos Ortiz, 30, and Tara Rosado, 26, inside Rosado’s Cuba Road home in Tavernier on Oct. 15, 2015. Investigators say the motive was to shut up Ortiz because he was extorting Macauley over a cocaine-dealing business they were both involved with.

Macauley found up to 20 kilos of cocaine in the ocean during the summer of 2015 while he was working as a mate on a charter fishing boat. He and his boss, Rick Rodriguez, captain of the Sea Horse charter boat, brought the cocaine on board and back to shore, attorneys for both the defense and the prosecution said.

Macauley, 41, enlisted a group of friends who were local drug dealers to sell the contraband. Ortiz was among the group, as was Adrian Demblans.

Demblans, 42, was convicted of driving Macauley to the home the night of the murders. He ended up pleading guilty to accessory after the fact of murder before the original trial and cooperated with police and prosecutors in their investigation against Macauley in both the murder case and a trafficking case related to the cocaine.

Rodriguez was never arrested or charged in the case and has repeatedly denied to the Miami Herald that he knew about the drugs nor was involved in killing Ortiz and Rosado.

Macauley’s attorney in the retrial, Donald Barrett, argued his client was not present during the murders, citing cellphone records, lack of fingerprints or DNA at the scene or in the car used in the killings and security camera footage prosecutors say showed Macauley at the scene, which Barrett said was too grainy to discern anyone on screen.

But prosecutors Aleathea McRoberts and Courtney Behar said other evidence in the case pointed directly at Macauley, including investigators tying the murder weapon, a Colt .45 model 1911 – with a wooden grip – being tied to him.

The gun was found by a snorkeler a month after the murders. Investigators connected the two spent bullet casings and one bullet found at Rosado’s home, to that gun. A witness also told Monroe County sheriff’s detectives that she saw Macauley get into the Toyota RAV4 that delivered the shooter to Rosado’s home.

Most telling, however, according to McRoberts and Behar were text messages between Macauley and Ortiz in the days leading up to and the day of the murders. Ortiz was demanding more of the cocaine proceeds from Macauley, or else he’d go to the cops.

The last communication between the two was a text from Macauley sent about an hour before the shootings, with a photograph of cash, saying he was on his way over to pay Ortiz.

“It defies common sense to think that anybody else is responsible for the murders,” Behar said during closing arguments Monday. “It defies common sense.”

Behar and McRoberts work for the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office. They were assigned the case because of a conflict in the case with the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office.

Barrett argued that Adrian Demblans was the mastermind behind the killers and brought someone else other than Macauley to kill the couple. The jailhouse witness whose statement was at the heart of the retrial said Adrian’s twin brother, Kristian Demblans, told him while the two were serving time in Monroe County lockup that he was the one who killed Rosado and Ortiz.

Adrian Demblans testified at the retrial that his brother traveled in different circles that he, Macaulay and Ortiz, and that he had nothing to do with the crime.

Barrett said in an email to the Miami Herald that he would filing a notice of appeal at the appropriate time.

“I thought the case was replete with reasonable doubt, but I appreciate the jury’s hard work and I respect their verdict.”

Macaulay was convicted and sentenced to two life terms in prison after the 2017 trial. He was also charged with armed robbery for stealing a phone from Rosado’s home the night of the murders. That charge was dismissed before jury deliberations in the retrial.

He is scheduled to be sentenced June 4 in Monroe County Circuit Court. He again faces life in prison.

“There is no leeway on those counts,” said Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office spokesman Marc Freeman. “Both are life in prison without the possibility of parole.”

In a statement to the Miami Herald, Tara Rosado’s family said they hoped, that after almost 10 years, the case was finally over.

“This does not get any easier,” the family said. “Please just let it be done, and let [Tara and Carlos] rest in peace.”