Nine years after he was shot and killed outside a bar in Puerto Rico, five men have been arrested and charged for the brutal murder of Hector “Macho” Camacho. TMZ Sports says that on Wednesday, “the first of five suspects appeared before a judge, accused of killing Camacho”.
The news outlet continues that:
Several of the suspects were already serving time behind bars … including three people who were in a federal penitentiary in Florida. U.S. officials transported the inmates by plane to Puerto Rico so they could face the judge. Two other men were arrested … one from a Puerto Rican jail, and another from his home in the early morning hours, not far from where the shooting happened nearly a decade ago.
Authorities say there were more people involved … but those men won’t have their time in court ’cause they were themselves killed in unrelated incidents in 2013 and 2015. Camacho — who was 50 years old at the time of his death — faced some of the greatest fighters during his great career … including wins over “Sugar” Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran (twice).
The motive for the crime is still unknown.
Here is what Camacho’s elderly mother said about the news of the arrest of her son’s murder suspects.
“They gave me justice.”
Camacho had been shot at in 2011, but he never filed a police report so there seemed to definitely be a reason why people wanted him killed. Here is how the 2012 murder went down.
On November 20, 2012, around 7 p.m. AST, Camacho was shot once in the jaw while sitting in a car, on Puerto Rico Highway 167, in Bayamón. Camacho, 50, was seated in the passenger seat of a friend’s Ford Mustang when he was shot by unknown individuals from a passing SUV. The driver of the car, Adrian Mojica Moreno, Camacho’s childhood friend, was killed in the attack. Camacho was taken to San Pablo Hospital in Bayamón, where he was reported to be in critical condition. Police said a chase took place and that the vehicle from which the shots were fired was found in the area of Jardines de Cataño. There were conflicting media reports, with an early claim that police arrested a suspect around 9 p.m. AST. Police investigating the incident said they found nine bags of cocaine in the car.
The bullet pierced Camacho’s left mandible and fractured his fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae, lodging in his right shoulder and forming a lesion on his carotid artery that restricted blood flow to his brain. At one point doctors announced Camacho was expected to survive but might be paralyzed, but after he suffered a cardiac arrest during the night, doctors said they could find only minimal brain activity. The morning after the shooting, Rafael Rodríguez Mercado, director of the Medical Sciences Campus, reported to El Nuevo Día that Camacho was brain stem dead. “His full recovery would be a miracle; medically there is nothing more that can be done,” stated Rodríguez Mercado. This was confirmed the next morning by Ernesto Torres, director of the hospital.
Camacho’s mother Maria Matias announced on November 23 plans to have her son taken off life support once his three remaining sons arrived in Puerto Rico to be with him. Héctor Camacho was officially declared dead after a heart attack the following day. It was not possible for any of his organs to be donated to recipients because of the time that had passed between him being found clinically brain dead and when his heart stopped.
Flip to the next page for more about the murder and arrest.
