Hillsborough prosecutors seek death penalty in robbery and stabbing case

TAMPA – Hillsborough District Attorney Suzy Lopez’s office will seek the death penalty for a man accused of stabbing another man and stealing his jewelry.

In a written statement filed Friday, prosecutors said they will seek the death penalty in the case of Dayhan Ruenes Vinet, who is accused of first-degree murder, robbery and other crimes in connection with the killing of Yalexander Jimenez Felipe in June.

This makes 32-year-old Ruenes Vinet at least the 13th defendant against whom the Hillsborough District Attorney’s Office is seeking the death penalty.

“Ruenes Vinet lured the victim and even asked her to wear jewelry when they met,” Lopez said in a statement. “The defendant then brutally stabbed the victim and pawned his jewelry for cash. This crime was cold, calculated and premeditated, and a jury should decide whether the defendant will receive the death sentence if convicted. My thoughts are with the victim’s family as we fight for justice together.”

Lopez has expanded the office’s death penalty prosecutions in the nearly two years since she was appointed district attorney. When Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended her predecessor, Andrew Warren, the office still had five death penalty cases pending, down from the peak of 24 cases Warren took over when he took office in 2016.

An affidavit in the Ruenes Vinet case describes an investigation that began June 4, when someone found Jimenez, 47, lying in a ditch on E Chelsea Street in the East Lake-Orient Park area, just east of the Tampa city limits. He had been stabbed multiple times in the chest. Investigators found blood in his silver Buick, which was parked nearby.

In Jimenez’s phone, Hillsborough Sheriff’s investigators found a series of WhatsApp messages he exchanged with Ruenes Vinet shortly before his death. They also found a voice message dated June 1 in which Runes Vinet told Jimenez to “come out” and “wear his jewelry,” according to an affidavit. He also told him he had a woman Jimenez could hang out with, the affidavit states.

Investigators found that Ruenes Vinet visited Ultra Jewelry Pawn Shop a few days after the murder and pawned three gold rings. The rings belonged to Jimenez, investigators wrote.

Ruenes Vinet told investigators he bought the rings from Jimenez on June 1, an affidavit states. He said he needed to resell them to make money to pay rent on his apartment.

But surveillance video from June 2 shows Jimenez wearing the rings at home that day, investigators wrote.

Ruenes Vinet said he last saw Jimenez when they left work on the afternoon of June 3, the document states. Her employer is not named in the affidavit. He said he went to his apartment late that day and stayed there until the next morning. But investigators found surveillance video that showed his car driving away from the apartment complex that night. Data from his phone placed him at the scene of the murder shortly after 9 p.m. on June 3, according to the affidavit.

The fact that the state is seeking the death penalty does not mean that Ruenes Vinet will get it. The law requires the state to prove at least one aggravating circumstance if a jury finds him guilty of premeditated murder.

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A court document lists the aggravating circumstances the state believes make the death penalty an appropriate punishment, including that the murder was “cold, calculated and premeditated,” that it was committed during a robbery and for financial gain, and that it was “particularly heinous, cruel or cruel.”

Ruenes Vinet’s defense will be able to present mitigating circumstances or reasons against the death penalty for the jury to consider. If he is ultimately sentenced to death, he will have the right to appeal his conviction and sentence, a process that typically takes decades.

The state’s decision came a few weeks after Lopez announced that she would seek the death penalty in the case of Angel Cuz Choc. The man from Guatemala is accused of brutally murdering his girlfriend and her four-year-old daughter in May.

Other defendants facing the death penalty in Hillsborough County include Jermaine Bass, who is accused of killing his five-year-old daughter and seriously wounding his eight-year-old son by shooting them both in their North Tampa apartment in 2022.

The state is also seeking the death penalty for Phillip Stapleton, who is charged with the 2023 murder of his ex-girlfriend Ashley Voss and another unrelated murder in 2021.

The death penalty is also being sought in the case of Billy Adams III, the Tampa rapper accused of murdering Alana Sims and her unborn child. The crime occurred three days after Adams was acquitted in another double murder case.