The Florida man who fatally shot his neighbor during an argument over dog poop told the victim’s wife in court on Thursday that her husband was a coward.
Omar Rodriguez was sentenced to life in prison after the killing that happened in Kendall in 2015, NBC Miami reported. The victim in the case is identified as Jose Rey, who left behind two children.
Florida man who killed neighbor over dog poop erupts at widow in courtroom outburst: ‘He cried like a baby’ https://t.co/Rr12Gixgy7 pic.twitter.com/pPld10T0f3
— New York Post (@nypost) August 16, 2024
When Rey’s widow, Lissette Rey, was giving her statement to the courtroom, Rodriguez yelled, “The coward was your husband. That’s why I killed him…he cried like a baby.”
Officers then removed the orange-clad, handcuffed killer from the courtroom. The 75-year-old Rodriguez was convicted in May on second-degree murder and aggravated assault charges. The assault charges were due to him threatening the victim’s wife at the scene of the crime.
Law enforcement said Rey was walking his dog when Rodriguez saw Rey’s dog about to poop on his son’s yard. Residents said the two men argued and Rodriguez claimed Rey threatened to come back to the scene and fight him.
However, police said at some point during the altercation Rodriguez shot Rey three times, and he died days later.
“Rey’s killing was the culmination, authorities say, of Rodriguez’s years-long pattern of harassing residents in three Miami-Dade neighborhoods,” the Miami Herald reported on May 3.
In 2015, a neighbor told CBS Miami that Rodriguez had called police and code enforcement on residents and yelled at elderly women who walked down the sidewalk with their dogs.
“We just really hope that the judge and the state attorney make sure that he no longer continues to be a threat. Obviously now that he’s willing to take somebody’s life hopefully they take it seriously,” the neighbor said.
Following the recent courtroom incident, Lissette Rey said, “I wish though the death sentence would have been on the table but at the end of the day Mr. Rodriguez will continue to see his family, they will be able to see him, I’ll never get to see my husband again.”
“I wasn’t listening to exactly to what he was saying, I was tuning him out, I was just reading my thoughts. His words are irrelevant. He is irrelevant in my life right now. He’s pond scum,” she added.
