Video Provides Clue In Miramar Woman's Disappearance
MIRAMAR (CBSMiami) – Surveillance video released Monday shows what Miramar Police believe is Vilet Torrez driving in to her Miramar community through the visitor entrance gate.
Vilet Torrez, 38, was reported missing April 2nd.
Phone records provided to CBS 4 News by Vilet's brother, Javier Blanco, reveal she made two phone calls to her husband Cid, a person of interest in the case, before she disappeared.
"When she called him he probably went downstairs eventually and that point at time, that's when he lost his mind," Blanco speculated after watching the surveillance video released by Miramar Police Monday.
Authorities said the video shows what transpired just before the mother of three vanished.
"Detectives went camera by camera, frame by frame, looking at every camera that went in to the community and went out," Miramar Police spokeswoman Tania Rues said. "What we do know is that her vehicle went in and did not come out."
The surveillance video shows a woman in a van trying to get into a gated Miramar neighborhood.
Police believe the person behind the wheel is Vilet Torrez.
"Based on information that we have and evidence, everything matches," Rues said. "She should have been arriving home at around that hour."
The hour was just after 5:15 a.m. Saturday March 31st, the morning after the night Vilet was reportedly last seen. Police say the time stamp on the video is about an hour off.
"That morning, she has trouble getting in to her community on the residence side," Rues explained of Vilet's actions that morning. "So she backs up, and goes in to the visitor side."
Once she made it in the gate, her brother said Vilet's phone records reveal she made two phone calls, both at 5:19 a.m., and both to her husband Cid's cell phone.
"(She) called him twice, twice at 5:19," Blanco said. "This completely contradicts every story that he's told. He's said that she never called."
Cid Torrez is considered a person of interest in this case.
He told police he was home with the couple's three children that Friday night and Saturday morning.
He didn't report Vilet missing until the Monday after the surveillance video was captured.
"I knew that I was seeing her last moments," Blanco said of the short video. "She didn't even realize that it was going to be her last moments. But I also felt a sense of peace. A sense of calmness. Because she looked beautiful."
Cid Torrez currently has custody of the couple's three young children.
He has not been charged with any crime.
CBS4 News reached out to his attorney for comment on the surveillance video.
Richard F. Della Fera wrote, "We thank the Miramar Police Department for releasing this video and hope that it will help solve the mystery of what happened to Vilet Torrez. We also thank the Miramar Police Department for confirming what Cid Torrez has previously stated to police; that at no time did he see or have contact with Vilet that night."
Della Fera said his client was sleeping at the time Vilet arrived in the neighborhood.
In regards to the phone calls, Della Fera wrote, "Cid did not receive any phone calls from Vilet and any assertion that Vilet spoke to him is inaccurate speculation. The time, number and length of the calls suggested by the phone records only show that she attempted to contact Cid at a time when he was asleep."
He asks that anyone who saw Vilet in the neighborhood that morning please call Miramar Police.
