Inset left to right: Natalie Fonseca and Nafis Reynolds (Escambia County Sheriff”s Office). Background: First Judicial Circuit Judge Linda L. Nobles sentenced Fonseca and Reynolds for several charges, including attempted murder and kidnapping, on Sept. 16, 2025, in Pensacola, Fla. (Law&Crime).
A Florida couple will spend just shy of three decades behind bars for a brutal surprise attack that left an innocent man bruised and beaten, bleeding badly from his throat, and nearly drowned in a river.
In March, Natalie Fonseca, 27, and Nafis Reynolds, 31, pleaded no contest to one count each of attempted murder in the first degree, kidnapping, carjacking, robbery, arson, and tampering with evidence.
On Tuesday, in separate and lengthy hearings, the defendants were sentenced to 30 years in prison for each of the first four counts against them. Each sentence runs concurrently, or at the same time. Fonseca and Reynolds were also credited with 695 days spent in pretrial detention. The final two counts against them were covered by time served.
During the hearing, a deputy who identified himself as the only Spanish-speaking investigator then working with the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office testified at length on behalf of the state about the victim’s offer to help that turned into an all-night living nightmare.
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The harrowing incident occurred on the night of Oct. 7, 2023, as Law&Crime previously reported. But the crime had its origins in the night before. That first night, Fonseca, using social media, asked the man to bring her some pizza or McDonald’s, the deputy testified. But the man offered tacos instead and Fonseca accepted.
The next day, the woman reached out again – asking for help again. The man readily agreed, venturing to her place after work. After dinner, Fonseca said she had to leave to run an errand, so the two departed together and then returned to her house. This time, only Fonseca went inside and emerged a few minutes later with Reynolds in tow. Then, the defendants got into the victim’s van together.
The trio then went to a second location for “a cookout at an uncle’s house,” the deputy testified. Along the way, Reynolds showed the victim a gun, but the victim was unimpressed and not yet scared. After spending time at the cookout, the victim said he needed to leave, so the three departed together again. But this trip, Fonseca and Reynolds made clear, would be the last.
Reynolds “began beating him with his pistol and his hands,” the deputy testified. Then, the deputy said Fonseca offered a chilling threat to the Spanish-speaking victim: “The woman who spoke Spanish told him that this was the night that he was going to die.”
“They were gonna drive him somewhere, take everything from him, and leave him there,” the deputy continued – summarizing the victim’s understanding of what Fonseca told him about her plans.
And, the couple tried to do as they had threatened.
After driving to a bridge over a river, the couple got the victim out of the van and continued to beat him, the deputy testified.
“They slashed his throat from one ear to another. After doing that, they picked him up, threw him over the bridge, he fell in the water, he felt the stinging on his neck, knew that he had been cut,” the deputy said.
The judge later described the throat-cutting in graphic detail: Fonseca grabbed the victim by his hair while Reynolds made three cuts.
After that, the victim held onto his neck and managed to swim to a small patch of land, the deputy continued. There, the man waited until nearly dawn for someone with a boat to drive by and rescue him. The boat’s driver did not speak Spanish and was only able to offer a ride to a nearby marina. There, covered in blood, the barefoot victim walked for 10 minutes until he found another deputy at a gas station.
Escambia County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Lionel Martinez, Jr. testifies about an alleged admission made by a criminal defendant during a sentencing hearing on Sept. 16, 2025, in Pensacola, Fla. (Law&Crime).
Using Google Earth, the man showed law enforcement the house he had traveled to earlier that night. Investigators then looked to see if any previous service calls had been made to the address. That search turned up a previous incident involving both Fonseca and Reynolds, the witness and victim in that prior incident, respectively.
From that information, investigators determined the pair had gone from crime victim (and witness) to perpetrator.
During a custodial interview, the deputy said he asked Fonseca about the incident involving a “Mexican” and the woman allegedly confessed to an entirely separate incident involving a man she met “at the Circle K” but insisted the deed was done while she was inside the house.
The deputy said he expressed confusion before explaining he was talking about the man “with his throat cut” and telling her that the man had, in fact, survived the gruesome attack.
“Then she just sat back in her chair and went, ‘Oh,'” the deputy testified.
Later, the judge remarked upon “the sheer violence of what happened” to the first victim – expressing shock and outrage that a similar ambush-style crime occurred “one week later.”
“I can’t imagine the fear,” the judge intoned – recalling the throat-slitting incident that befell the first man. “That, in and of itself, is enough to convince to the sentence that I am going to sentence.”
The sheriff’s office originally released news of the crime under the title: “A Social Media Date Turned Bad.” But the victim did not describe the initially planned meetup as a date at all.
“[The victim] stated he messaged the female, who said she was having issues with money and needed food, and he offered to take her to dinner or take her to buy some food,” the initial arrest report reads. “[The victim] met the female and bought drinks for her children and other food items.”
