WEST PALM BEACH — Reynaldo Paredes Martinez is no stranger to the sight of blood. As a practitioner of Santeria, he's held many rituals in the shed behind his home, dubbed "the room of the saints," where he's slit the throats of animals to offer their blood as a sacrifice.
And just like those animals, Jorge Mobilla Menendez was found in a dumpster not far from Martinez's home with his throat slit open.
The defense at his recent murder trial pushed on how there was no murder weapon, and the prosecution said the whole scheme was planned. In the end, neither argument mattered: Jurors rejected the prosecutors' theory that the April 2022 killing was premeditated, but they didn't think Martinez was innocent, either.
After hours of deliberation, they
convicted him of manslaughter, sparing him an automatic life sentence.
Martinez now awaits sentencing, which has been scheduled for Nov. 5 before Circuit Judge Sarah Willis.
Prosecutors lay out Martinez's role in 2022 murder of Jorge Mobilla Menendez
Assistant State Attorneys Jo Wilensky and Mathri Thannikkotu hugged the family of Menendez following both their closing and rebuttal arguments on Aug. 26, with the family thanking them for their work.
Their statements worked to paint a picture of Martinez's guilt. By using cell phone records and license-plate reader cameras, they showed how Martinez was at the right place at the right time, helping out his nephew, Yoel Lazaro Paredes, kill Menendez. Lazaro Paredes' case remains before the courts.
They further pushed the claim that the entire murder was premediated, from Martinez going with his nephew to a West Palm Beach sports bar to pick up Menendez, to killing Menendez at his home, to helping to toss his body in the dumpster.
Police found the body at the Southridge Senior Community on the 3900 block of Southridge Court, near Conniston Middle School.
Investigators say the three men were at Las Brisas on Georgia Avenue on the night of April 2, 2022, before leaving in a white 2003 Mercury Marquis sedan.
A witness told investigators he spoke to Menendez by telephone during the overnight hours on April 3 but lost contact with him afterward. Menendez reportedly told the caller he was in the "room of saints." Investigators said Reynaldo Paredes has a structure in his backyard that houses religious figurines he described as saints.
According to an arrest report, surveillance-camera video from the bar showed Menendez getting into the Mercury. Other surveillance video captured the car at Southridge. Police found the car days later outside a residence occupied by Lazaro Paredes.
Investigators obtained a warrant for the vehicle and found what appeared to be blood in the trunk. DNA tests found that Menendez and Lazaro Paredes were likely contributors, according to the police report.
In a separate conversation days later, detectives spoke to a person related to the Paradeses who described overhearing a conversation in which Reynaldo Paredes Martinez told someone, "I already did the job you wanted me to." The relative alleged that he took Menendez's knife and used it to kill him.
As Wilensky spoke, rehashing details involving DNA and previously shared crime-scene photos, the family of Menendez began tearing up, comforting one another as the prosecutor continued with her case.
"Surely we proved that Mr. Jorge Menendez is dead and that the defendant intentionally committed an act or acts that caused the death of Mr. Menendez. … Ladies and gentlemen, the list is exhausting. In this case, the evidence is clear. You combine it all up together — it shows you a complete picture, and the complete picture is that the defendant and his nephew killed Mr. Menendez," Wilensky said.
But it wasn't enough to persuade jurors that the killing was premeditated.
Defense claims Martinez was in the wrong place at the wrong time
Public defender Jessica Crockett kicked off her closing argument by saying how the state did little to lay out the circumstances of the murder. She said no evidence that prosecutors presented correlated to circumstance at all.
"In deciding the killing was first-degree murder, you have to know the circumstances of the killing. That's what these instructions tell you," Crockett said.
She told the jury it is possible Yoel Lazaro Paredes, the nephew, committed a crime, but that doesn't mean that Reynaldo Paredes Martinez took part.
"(The state) talked about being the last person to see Mr. Mobilla alive. That does not have anything to do with whether Reynaldo Paredes Martinez and Yoel Paredes were working together. That doesn't tell you that. They went back to Reynaldo's house — that doesn't tell you that they were working together and not just hanging out with one another."
"What piece of evidence shows you that Mr. Mobilla died in (the room of the saints)? Being in that room, his presence at 533 Dogwood (Road) does not show that Yoel Paredes and Reynaldo Paredes Martinez were working together."
Menendez was a familiar face to the Paredes family, Crockett said, and there's no reason to think people who considered each other friends wouldn't spend time together at one another's house. It could have been that kind of night before something happened between Yoel Lazaro Paredes and Menendez, she said.
She also noted how there was no motive for the killing and that in the video of the men leaving Las Brisas, that there was no struggle and that everyone walked together to the car.
At the time of the murder, Martinez's wife and mother-in-law were in the home, Crockett said, asking why a family man would murder someone at his house where people were sleeping. She presented photos that were submitted in evidence of the shed, where the murder reportedly took place, and yet it looked totally clean.
"If this is where he died, where is the proof?" Crockett said.
"The state, I believe, is going to argue, 'Well, they cleaned it up.' How do you clean the plywood underneath your tiles that had to be pried up by law enforcement? He didn't replace his whole shed, and he know he didn't clean because we saw that first photo."
Arianna Otero covers breaking news for The Palm Beach Post. Contact her via email at AOtero@pbpost.com and follow her on X: @ari_v_otero.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Man found guilty of lesser charge in 2022 West Palm dumpster death
