Man convicted of killing, dismembering ex's new boyfriend
KENNER, La. - A jury in Louisiana has convicted a man of murder in the killing and dismembering of his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend, whose body parts later surfaced in a canal off a highway.
After a six-day trial, the Jefferson Parish District Attorney announced that 45-year-old Viusqui J. Perez-Espinosa was found guilty Monday of second-degree murder and obstruction of justice in the 2016 death of 27-year-old Ives Alexis Portales-Lara.
Authorities said Perez-Espinosa encouraged the victim to move in with his ex-girlfriend, but then he returned and moved in with them both two months later. They accused him of sexually assaulting the ex-girlfriend on the day Portales-Lara was last seen alive.
A Honduran immigrant who moved to East Jefferson to be near his young daughter, Portales-Lara was reported missing in November 2016 after he missed church and failed to pick up his child for a scheduled visit, reported CBS affiliate WWL.
His severed arm was discovered by a fisherman in the canal a month later, while the search for more remains continued for more than a year, according to the station. Pipeline workers dredging the canal found his legs and torso in January 2017.
Perez-Espinosa was also convicted of obstruction of justice for his efforts to conceal his crime.
According to evidence presented at trial, the day after he killed Portales, Perez "disarticulated the body, packed the remains in garbage bags, stuffed them in his car's trunk and drove to St. John the Baptist Parish, where he threw them off the Interstate 10 bridge over the swamps near the Reserve Canal," said prosecutors.
Perez-Espinosa testified Monday that Portales had attacked him with a knife, and cut his own throat in the struggle. He said the body was too heavy for him to carry to the trunk of his car, but he would not describe cutting it into pieces.
Perez-Espinosa previously worked as a fisherman and boat captain in Cuba and as a butcher in Honduras, according to the D.A.
He faces life in prison at sentencing on April 26.