Body found burned believed to be a Homestead woman who got carjacked in Central Florida

David J. Neal
·3 min read
3

A body found burned at an Osceola County construction site is believed to be a Homestead woman, whose Thursday carjacking was caught on cell phone video.

Katherine Altagracia Guerrero De Aguasvias, if the investigators’ hypothesis is correct, died Thursday at the age of 31.

Katherine Altagracia Guerrero De Aguasviva of Homestead.
Katherine Altagracia Guerrero De Aguasviva of Homestead.

Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma said the gunshots and fire that led to people calling the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office occurred about 105 minutes after the carjacking at an intersection in unincorporated Seminole County.

“By the time the Osceola Sheriff’s Office arrived there, there was so much damage to the vehicle, you could not positively identify the vehicle,” Lemma said at a Friday news conference. “But they also discovered that one person was deceased in that vehicle. We believe that to be the vehicle and the decedent to be Katherine, but we have to positively confirm that through DNA examinations and dental records.

“But from all accounts of looking at the scene, it looks like the vehicle.”

Guerrero left her native Dominican Republic five years ago and became a U.S. citizen. With her husband, she owned a barbershop and a hair salon in Homestead.

“This was not a random act of violence,” Lemma said. “The perps knew who they were going after. Why they were going after her is part of ongoing investigation.”

Lemma said when the driver carrying the suspected carjacker started hitting Guerrero’s car from the rear, Guerrero called her husband, but, so far, nobody’s found a record of either calling a law enforcement agency. The sheriff’s office originally was told Guerrero drove up to to visit relatives, but investigators found no relatives in Seminole County or the rest of the Orlando metropolitan area.

Also not found, Lemma said, is any record of criminal activity by Guerrero or her husband.

A drive from Homestead to Central Florida

Guerrero began driving north around noon Thursday and was north of Jupiter in Palm Beach County by 2 p.m. Lemma said her route took her through Orlando on Interstate 4 and into Seminole County, where she made an eight-minute pit stop at a Shell station for gas.

“About a half-mile before East Lake (Drive) and Tuskawilla (Road), she started to notice that the green Acura was behind her and ramming into her back bumper,” Lemma said. “She called her husband. She told her husband she was being rammed and someone was following her. Her husband provided the advice, ‘Don’t stop, don’t stop, anywhere.’”

The green Acura sedan from which the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office say the carjacker emerged.
The green Acura sedan from which the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office say the carjacker emerged.

Guerrero stopped only when forced to do so by the stoplight at East Lake Drive and Tuskawilla Road around 6 p.m. The Acura pulled up behind her. Someone with a gun and a “Halloween mask” got out of a green Acura sedan and put a gun on Guerrero as a passenger in the car behind the Acura began shooting cell phone video.

The gunman then got into Guerrero’s Dodge Durango’s rear driver’s side door. The Durango and the Acura U-turned back west on East Lake Drive. But, then, Lemma said, they U-turned again back to the intersection and turned south onto Tuskawilla. They cut across lanes of traffic to get on State Road 417 South, the Central Florida GreeneWay.

Their exact route isn’t known, Lemma said, but SCSO speculation is they got off at Narcoossee Road, then turned onto Boggy Creek Road into Osceola County.

“There was a newer construction area that was set off in a little bit of a distance,” Lemma said, “but not so far away that eyewitnesses could not report hearing gunshots and, ultimately, the smoke of a vehicle set ablaze.”

Anyone with information on the Acura or anything about this can call SCSO at 407-665-6650 or Crimeline 800-423-8477 (TIPS).