MIAMI (TCN) — Following a new sentencing trial after an appeal, a jury sentenced a 61-year-old man to death for the second time.
In August 2005, Rafael Andres killed 31-year-old Yvette Farinas, WPLG reports. At the time, Farinas worked as a waitress and lived with her boyfriend. Andres was a handyman and had been hired to do renovations at their home.
Casino.org reports that Farinas trusted Andres and gave him a spare key to the home. On Aug. 6, 2005, he used the key to enter the residence when Farinas was alone and reportedly beat her until she gave him her ATM PIN number. He then stabbed her, strangled her with an electrical cord from a rice cooker, and set the home on fire before fleeing.
Following Farinas’ death, Andres reportedly used her ATM card to withdraw cash, buy items at Home Depot, and gamble at a casino, according to Casino.org. Detectives used ATM withdrawal information and cellphone data to follow his movements and later connected him with evidence found in Farinas’ home using DNA technology. He was arrested in early 2006.
Andres was sentenced to death in 2015, but the sentence was later overturned.
NBC Miami reports that the Florida Supreme Court granted Andres a new sentencing trial after the United States Supreme Court ruled a state law unconstitutional in 2016. Last November, a jury voted 9-3 for Andres to be sentenced to death based on the evidence in Farinas’ case.
In an April Spencer hearing, Andres’ attorneys attempted to convince the judge to sentence him to life in prison instead of to death. His attorney drafted a 350-page letter blaming cocaine use for Farinas’ killing, CBS News reports.
Farinas was not the first person Andres killed, WPLG reports. In 1987, he fatally stabbed Linda Azcarreta. Her son, Rene Azcarreta, found her body. WPLG reports he said, “I was 7 years old. So I come home and I see her and she had already passed on.”
CBS News reports Andres had been sentenced to nine years in Linda Azcarreta’s death but served 18 months.
Azcarreta’s case was a factor for Miami-Dade County Judge Zachary James, who chose to go with the new jury’s recommendation for a death sentence, WPLG reports. He said, “The aggregator reflects the prior conviction. The defendant served his sentence and then committed the new felony decades later.”
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