Victim's Brother: Torrez Threatened Wife Before She Disappeared
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FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) -- It was an emotional morning for the family of a woman who vanished five years, as day two in her husband's murder trial got underway.
Cid Torrez, 43, sat stone-faced as the victim's brother, Javier Blanco, took the stand. Blanco wiped away tears describing the traumatic events surrounding his sister Vilet's disappearance in March 2012 and the devastating loss the family endured.
Blanco said he knew Torrez had threatened his sister.
"I knew that he was my sister's husband, I dealt with him," Blanco testified Friday. "But strained in a way because we knew what was happening. But we dealt with it."
The couple's daughter, also named Vilet, also testified against her father. She said she awoke in the early morning hours of March 31, 2012 to hear her father in a confrontation with someone downstairs in their Miramar townhouse.
"I heard a howling sound and crying, my dad's voice overlapping. And then it was saying, 'No, you wake
up' five or six times," she said.
Prosecutors said the commotion was Cid Torrez murdering his wife.
The couple was separated at the time and Vilet Torrez was returning home in the early morning hours after spending the night with co-worker Zoe Rodriguez.
Rodriguez, who also testified Friday, said shortly after he became romantically involved with Vilet, he got a heated phone call from Torrez.
"He said I should stop because I didn't know what he was capable of," Rodriguez recalled. "I told him you are not gonna bully me like you bully her."
Prosecutors claim Torrez murdered Vilet, hid her body in his car and dumped it near the Everglades. Torrez said he had nothing to do with her disappearance.
Vilet Torrez's body has never been found.