Hillsborough prosecutors seek death penalty in killings of woman, 4-year-old

TAMPA — Hillsborough prosecutors will seek the death penalty for a Guatemalan man accused in the brutal killings of his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter last month in east Hillsborough County.

Angel Gabriel Cuz Choc, 31, faces two counts of first-degree murder, among other charges, for the horrific stabbings last month of Amalia Coc-Choc de Pec and her daughter, Estrella Anastasia Pec Coc.

A written notice filed in court last Friday lists several aggravating circumstances that the state says justify capital punishment, the harshest penalty available under Florida law. Those factors include that one of the victims was a child and that both murders were “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel.”

A State Attorney’s Office news release issued Wednesday noted that Cuz Choc is also suspected in two murders in his native Guatemala. Details about those crimes were not available.

The state filed its death penalty notice with unusual speed. Such notices typically happen after a defendant’s arraignment; Cuz Choc is scheduled for an arraignment next week.

A court paper that the state filed after his arrest offered a detailed account of the murder investigation.

It began with an afternoon 911 call April 24. A man reported finding Amalia Coc-Choc de Pec, 36, lying under a tarp in a shed beside a home on Sumner Road, just north of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Dover.

Sheriff’s deputies arrived and determined she was dead, with severe cuts to her neck, face and body. They entered the home and in a bathroom found her 4-year-old daughter lying in a bathtub where the water was running. The girl had been stabbed in her neck and head.

Surveillance video from a neighboring home showed the woman, about two hours before the 911 call, screaming as a man chased her outside, according to the document. She continued to yell as the man carried her to the area where she was later found dead.

Investigators interviewed Cuz Choc’s two brothers. One of them said Cuz Choc called him that afternoon. His brother bid him “farewell,” according to the document. The other brother said Cuz Choc called him less than two hours after the slayings, and confessed to the killings.

One of his brothers claimed that Cuz Choc told him the reason for the killings was that his girlfriend had gone out with a friend “for three hours instead of her allotted hour and a half,” the document states.

Sheriff’s deputies began a 17-hour manhunt, which was focused on the largely rural area near the crime scene, where strawberry fields and thick shrubs and forest mark the land. Sheriff’s dogs found Cuz Choc the next day, hiding amid thick vegetation about two miles from the crime scene.

The court document repeatedly emphasizes his illegal entry into the country, noting the likelihood that he would flee if released on bail. In an interview with a detective after his arrest, Cuz Choc said he had crossed the U.S. border last September with the assistance of a smuggler, known as a “coyote.”

He claimed he met Amalia Coc-Choc de Pec through Facebook while they were living in New Jersey, according to a state attorney’s office news release. The woman and her daughter moved to Florida and began living with him after he found work as a day laborer.

The Hillsborough Public Defender’s Office, which represents Cuz Choc, did not contest the state’s request that he remain jailed without bail while awaiting trial.

The case is at least the 13th pending Hillsborough prosecution in which the state is seeking capital punishment. Local death penalty prosecutions have increased since August 2022, when Suzy Lopez was appointed to be Hillsborough County’s state attorney. At that time, the office had five pending death penalty cases.