MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A man was arrested Wednesday, decades after the robbery and fatal shooting of a restaurant owner in northwest Miami-Dade.
Alexis Jesus Avila, now 49, is charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery in connection with the death of Lucio Leon.
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According to an arrest warrant, the victim, who owned the Tuyo y Mio restaurant, would cash checks for customers and area merchants on payday Fridays.
Police said he went to the Ocean Bank branch at 1801 W. Fourth Ave. in Hialeah on March 2, 1990, and withdrew a large amount of money for the purpose of cashing checks at his business.
According to the warrant, Leon arrived back at his business that afternoon and was ambushed by three men as he was getting out of his car.
Police said the thieves opened fire at the victim and Leon fired back at them.
Detectives said Avila approached Leon as the victim was lying on the ground and shot him several more times at close range.
Leon was pronounced dead at the scene.
A witness followed the men after the ambush and saw them throw an object from their vehicle, which police later recovered and said was an ashtray.
Detectives said the witness eventually lost track of the robbers' car and returned to the scene.
Police said they later found the car, which had been reported stolen, abandoned in the area of Northwest 37th Avenue and 104th Street.
The car was found with blood stains on the floorboard, authorities said.
According to an arrest warrant, police received a tip in 1994 from a source who identified Avila as one of the suspects in the shooting.
The source identified the two other suspects as Danny Martinez, now 50, and another man known as Alexis, although the source didn't know his last name.
The source told detectives Avila told him that the other Alexis had suffered a gunshot wound in the shooting.
According to the arrest warrant, investigators received a report in January 2013 from the Miami-Dade Police Department Crime Laboratory Bureau, confirming the blood on the floorboard of the car had matched the DNA of a man named Alexe Nodal, now 50.
Nodal was arrested Aug. 15, 2018.
Police said he confessed to his involvement in the robbery and shooting and identified Avila as the mastermind behind the plot to ambush Leon.
Nodal told detectives Avila was also the person who ultimately fatally shot Leon, the warrant stated.
According to detectives, the witness also identified Avila in a photo lineup as the man he saw shooting the victim.
Avila currently lives in Panama City, where he was taken into custody Wednesday. He was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on Thursday.