HIALEAH, Fla. – Hialeah police took a woman to jail early Wednesday morning after they said she shot and wounded her brother after a family barbecue at their mother’s home over the weekend.
Viviana Paneca, 39, is facing an attempted murder charge after police said the victim told investigators his sister shot him Sunday night after he told her over the phone that she couldn’t stay at his home.
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According to an arrest report, that phone call came while the victim left the barbecue, held at an apartment complex in the area of 41 E. Seventh St., to buy beer.
The victim’s wife told investigators that she heard Paneca arguing with her husband over the phone, the report states.
Police said when she asked Paneca what it was about, she “told her to not worry about it and she would not hesitate to shoot the victim if she had to.”
Police said the victim’s wife then left the barbecue and went home.
The victim would tell police from his bed at Jackson Memorial Hospital that after the argument over the phone with his sister, he had gotten a call from his mother that Jorge Luis Pelegrin, who would become a co-defendant in the case, was fighting with Paneca, the report states.
Police said the victim went back to the complex and confronted Pelegrin, 47, and the two started to argue.
The report states that doorbell camera video, taken just before the 11:25 p.m. shooting, recorded Pelegrin saying, “Let me get that gun bro, let me get that gun bro” as the victim chased him.
During said argument, Paneca came out into the parking lot and displayed a black and silver handgun, police said. They said the victim retreated as he saw Paneca and Pelegrin approach him in the parking lot.
According to the report, the video shows Paneca walking towards her brother as she pointed the gun at him, yelling, “Get the f--- out of here” twice.
In the video, the victim is heard telling his sister, “Shoot me, shoot me,” police said. According to the report, she then fired one round at the ground.
Pelegrin, police said, is then heard saying, “Shoot him in the head.”
Police said the video shows the victim, who told investigators he didn’t think his sister would actually shoot him, walk towards Paneca, “at which time she fires a second round, striking him in the left thigh.”
The victim and a witness drove away in an SUV and were stopped by Hialeah police on their way to a local hospital after someone reported the shooting; Paneca fled into an alleyway, according to police.
The report states that the victim’s wife called Paneca just before 12:30 a.m. to ask where he was, since it was late and he hadn’t returned home.
Paneca told her brother’s wife that she “did not want to know,” police said.
“You shot your brother, didn’t you?” police said the victim’s wife asked.
“Yeah,” they said Paneca replied.
Paneca told the victim’s wife that “if she ever had love for her, (she) would say she has not spoken to her and she did not know anything about the incident,” the report states.
Police said they called Pelegrin Wednesday and he told them he was at the Days Inn at 124 E. Palm Drive in Florida City and told arriving officers that Paneca was staying at a nearby Fairway Inn.
Instead, police said Hialeah detectives and Florida City officers found Paneca hiding behind a building at 335 S. Krome Ave. in order to conceal herself from law enforcement.
Authorities took both Paneca and Pelegrin to jail.
Paneca was being held without bond at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, as of Wednesday afternoon, after a judge found probable cause to charge her with attempted murder.
Pelegrin, also at TGK, was being held on a $2,500 bond on a charge of accessory after the fact, jail records show.