After multiple attempts, a 12-person jury has finally been selected this week in a criminal case against a man accused of killing a couple in their Tavernier residence while their children were in the home at the time of the crime in 2015.
Jeremy Macauley’s trial in execution-style murders of Carlos Ortiz and Tara Rosado will start Monday, May 6, at the Plantation Key courthouse. A jury was unable to be seated twice earlier this month. Finding an impartial jury has been difficult, as the murders occurred in a small, tight-knit community and the case has garnered a significant amount of news coverage since the murders.
Nearly 10 years after the double murder of Ortiz and Rosado in Tavernier, Macauley is once again standing trial in their deaths. His first conviction was overturn by an appeals court.
Five years ago, the 3rd District Court of Appeal overturned Macauley’s conviction and two life sentences, ruling that Judge Luis Garcia erred by not allowing evidence that suggested the other suspect in the case was the shooter in the double homicide.
A jailhouse informant, Eric Lansford, told prosecutors that the twin brother of the getaway driver, Adrian Demblans, had told him he shot Ortiz and Rosado while their children slept in the home at the time of the murder. Demblan’s twin brother, Kristian, also has an arrest record.
The October 2015 killings were one of the most notorious Upper Keys murder cases in years and shocked the sleepy Tavernier community at the time. Especially troubling to residents in that community was the fact that there were small children in the home at the time of the murders.
Neighbors noticed children from that home running down their street. The children told the neighbors that their parents were dead. One of the neighbors watched the children while another went into the home, confirmed that report and called deputies, according to court records.
In April 2017, Adrian Demblans turned state evidence in exchange for a 10-year sentence after being implicated in the murders of Ortiz and Rosado.
He testified in court that he had driven Macauley to the couple’s home, and that Macauley went inside alone to shoot Ortiz for attempting to extort money and more cocaine from Macauley’s drug trafficking ring by threatening to tell the police. Rosado was killed because she was a witness to the murder, according to the testimony.
The cocaine at the crux of the case had been found at sea during the summer of 2015 by Macauley while he was mating aboard a charter fishing boat. He found about 18 kilos of cocaine and enlisted friends to help sell it. Adrian Demblans was included, as well as Ortiz, according to court records.
Macauley’s former defense attorney, Ed O’Donnell Sr., unsuccessfully attempted to blame the murders on the twin brothers, whom he described to jurors as prior offenders.
The case was not handled by the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office because a family member of one of the suspects in the case consulted with State Attorney Dennis Ward about the case while Ward was not state attorney but serving as a criminal defense attorney.
The Florida Attorney General’s Office appointed the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office to handle the case. Representatives with that office declined to comment on the case, but did say the state’s order for Palm Beach prosecutors to handle the case has expired.
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