Report: Alleged ringleader in Fla. machete ambush pleads not guilty
HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- The suspected ringleader in the machete murder of a Florida Job Corps student has pleaded not guilty, reports the Miami Herald.
Kaheem Arbelo, 20, appeared Tuesday before a Miami-Dade judge. He's been charged along with three other students in the June killing of Jose Amaya Guardado, who police say was slashed with a machete and then buried in a wooded area.
Arbelo didn't speak as his court-appointed attorney entered the not-guilty plea on his behalf, the paper reports. He is reportedly charged with second-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and four counts of tampering with a witness or victim.
According to an arrest report, the suspects had planned the attack two weeks in advance.
The report accuses them of luring Amaya Guardado, 17, to a wooded area near Homestead Job Corps, a live-in school and vocational training program for at-risk students run by the U.S. Department of Labor. That's where Amaya Guardado was hacked to death with a machete and left in a shallow grave that the suspects had dug in advance, police said.
Three of the suspects allegedly confessed to the murder, Crimesider reported, telling police all four of the suspects dug a grave and on June 28, 2015, lured Guardado to the woods, then attacked him with a machete they had stashed at the scene.
At one point, according to the arrest report, Strickland complained that she missed the first round of machete strikes because she left the murder scene to urinate.
Guardado was allegedly "ordered to lay in the grave" and "made one last attempt to fight off the attacker, at which time co-defendant (Arbelo) struck the victim with the machete several more times until the victim's face caved in."
The teens the allegedly pushed Guardado into the grave, buried him, and burned his belongings and their blood-covered clothing.
Finally, according to the arrest report, Strickland and Arbelo had sex in the woods "until it was time to return to campus."
All four defendants, including Jonathan Lucas, 18, and Cristian Colon, 19, have been charged with second-degree murder.
A judge set an October trial date, but prosecutors could also decide to present the case to a grand jury for a first-degree murder indictment, which would make the defendants eligible for the death penalty, reports the paper.
The Miami Herald reports that the group may have targeted Guardado over a debt he owned Arbelo.
Guardado was reported missing on June 28 and his body was discovered by his family on July 1.
Guardado's mother told the Associated Press she brought her son to the United States nine years ago to escape the violence rampant in their native El Salvador. But now his family is mourning his death.
"I brought my son from there because they were killing people," Lucia Guardado said, in Spanish, at the family's south Miami-Dade home. "I never imagined they would do something like that to my son here."