Collier jury finds Reyna guilty of killing woman on Seminole reservation in 2014

A Collier County jury Thursday found a LaBelle man guilty of second-degree murder in the 2014 shooting death of a woman. 

Aaron Reyna, 27, was accused of fatally shooting Dana Fegueroa, 29, on Oct. 6, 2014, in a trailer in the 500 block of Dorothy Billie Jimmie Way on the Seminole reservation, south of Immokalee. 

The six-person jury, which deliberated for about 1½ hours Thursday, also found Reyna guilty of two charges of shooting within a dwelling.

Prosecutors said Reyna shot Fegueroa four times in her room because she cursed at him and “disrespected” him.

Authorities found her body in a storage bin in the trailer after they surrounded the home and were able to persuade Reyna to leave the residence and surrender.

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For Fegueroa's family, the verdict provided a sense of closure, more than three years after the killing.

Alfredo Fegueroa Sr., Dana Fegueroa's father, said the family was happy with the verdict.

"I thank the good Lord that it was that," he said.

Dana Fegueroa's grandfather, Julius Bembry, who also attended Thursday's proceedings, agreed.

"At least we got some justice," he said.

Witnesses who were in the trailer during the shooting testified during the four-day trial that Fegueroa was frustrated when she asked Reyna’s girlfriend for a ride to work the next morning and Reyna said that they wouldn’t give her one. 

When she cursed at Reyna and left for her room, Reyna followed her, witnesses said. A friend of Fegueroa’s and Reyna’s girlfriend at the time testified they heard gunshots shortly after Reyna went after Fegueroa. 

Fegueroa’s boyfriend, who went to the bedroom with Fegueroa, said Reyna was “right in front of the door,” pulled a gun and started shooting.

Jurors during the trial also heard a recording of an interview Reyna gave to a Collier County Sheriff's Office detective after his arrest. In the roughly 30-minute recording, Reyna can be heard saying Fegueroa cursed at him and that he shot her in the head.

A Florida Department of Law Enforcement crime laboratory analyst who examined firearms and ammunition from the scene for fingerprints testified Wednesday that she found one of Reyna’s fingerprints on a .45-caliber firearm and one on a magazine for that firearm.

Prosecutors said Reyna used a .38-caliber revolver to shoot Fegueroa and a .45-caliber pistol to fire two shots in his bedroom during a standoff with authorities.

“On top of all the witnesses, on top of all the physical evidence you’ve seen, on top of all the evidence,” Assistant State Attorney Tino Cimato said during closing arguments Thursday, “you have the words of Mr. Reyna who said, ‘I shot her, because she disrespected me.’ ”

Reyna, who was dressed in a black suit jacket and white button-down shirt and had family watching in the courtroom, listened silently when the verdict was read Thursday. 

He could be sentenced to life in prison at an April 20 hearing.

"We expect a harsh sentencing," said Reyna's attorney, James Zonas.

Zonas said the recording of his client admitting to the shooting to the Sheriff's Office detective "was clearly what changed the jury's mind."

"Everyone's minds changed immediately," he said.

A motion to not let the jury hear the recording was denied before the trial's start Monday.

In the motion, originally filed by the public defender's office in August 2016, defense attorneys argued that detectives should have ceased asking questions of Reyna once he declined to speak to a Seminole police detective.

Court documents show Reyna did not want to talk to the Seminole officer, but did agree to talk to a Sheriff's Office detective who had negotiated with Reyna while he was barricaded in the trailer.

In his February 2017 order denying the motion, Collier Circuit Court Judge Frederick Hardt wrote that the detective who interviewed Reyna "scrupulously honored" Reyna's Miranda rights and that the detective just asked a "clarification question which was not likely to elicit an incriminating response" from Reyna.

Zonas said Thursday his client had to go through trial in order to appeal, which he said he plans to do. The goal would be to have a new trial without the confession, he said.

Video: A Look at Aaron Reyna's Trial Accused of Killing Woman in 2014