FORT PIERCE, Fla. — Fort Pierce police are looking for a suspect they said is responsible for shooting and killing Guillermo Barrientos Otero, a 35-year-old father, one week before Father's Day.
"My husband will not be in peace until the man is caught, but I feel like it's me that will not be at peace for him until this man is caught," his widow Selene Saucedo said about her husband who was killed Sunday night in the 800 block of South 21st Street. One other man was wounded.
Police said the suspect is Edwin Ruiz-Avila, 42.
They said Avila is 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-9 and weighs 140 to 150 pounds. He is believed to be armed and dangerous.
He was last seen wearing a black shirt, khaki shorts, white sneakers, a rosary chain, a gold chain with a gold cross, and a black watch on his left wrist.
"I see his picture with a cross on his chest and a rosary, and he turns around and shoots my husband," Saucedo said. "It doesn't make sense to me. This man is a monster."
Saucedo said the two had been married for six years and that her husband was a people person who loved soccer.
She said Otero was working to support his parents as well as his 11-year-old son from another relationship who all live in Mexico.
"I'm sorry that he wasn't able to see his son, that he wasn't able to see his family and that he's going back the way he is," Saucedo said. "He was the best father."
She said there will be a service Wednesday in Fort Pierce but that Otero will be buried in Mexico to be close to his parents and son.
"It was hard giving him the news. His son is devastated. He hasn't stop crying because my brother was the one he talked to every day," Juan Antonio Mata, Otero's brother, said. "My brother, despite the distance, tried to be close to his son."
Saucedo said Otero was out with friends the night he was killed.
His brother rushed to the scene when he got the news and found Otero lying on the ground, never getting a chance to say goodbye.
"He had a pulse, but he was unconscious. I kept yelling at him to hang in there, to be strong, but he couldn't hear me anymore," Mata said. "I've tried to be strong and say I'll remember him for being happy, but it's hard."
The two are Otero's only family in the United States and are pleading for answers as the suspect is on the loose.
"Don't be afraid to turn him in. Be afraid that he's still out there," Mata said. "He won't hold back from killing someone else like he killed my brother."
Police warned anyone who sees the suspect not to approach him and instead call authorities immediately.
