BOXER Félix Verdejo allegedly tried to force his pregnant lover to get rid of their baby before she was shot dead.
The body of Keishla Rodríguez Ortiz was found in a lagoon in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Saturday, two days after she was reported missing by her family.
Verdejo is married but had known Rodríguez since middle school and kept in touch with her, Keila Ortíz Rivera, the victim’s mother, told reporters.
Her mom said that she last spoke with her daughter on Friday, before Verdejo allegedly went to her house.
"Yesterday we spoke at 7:00 am she told me: 'Mommy, Felix is coming to see the pregnancy test, but the blood test.' I told him: 'Girl, be careful', because he had already threatened her not to have the baby, that he has his family, that he is a boxer, that he is a public figure," she told a local news outlet.
Rivera said that she received a second call just over two hours later, this time from her other daughter claiming that Ortiz had not arrived at work.
The sister then called the boxer to ask about Ortiz's whereabouts, to which Verdejo allegedly told her he did not know.
According to Rivera, the boxer had allegedly threatened her and asked her to abort their baby.
"When she told him that she was pregnant, there he started threatening her," she claimed.
"That if you are going to take them off, that you are going to have an abortion, that if I am a public figure, that if I have a family, that if the family here or there and she said, 'Don't worry, you don't have to admit it, I just want my baby'."
A criminal complaint filed by the FBI accuses Verdejo, 27, of punching Rodríguez in the face and injecting her with a syringe filled with an unidentified substance.
Investigators say Verdejo, a former Olympian, then bound her arms and feet with wire, tied a heavy block to her and threw her off a bridge at 8.30am on Thursday.
Verdejo shot Rodríguez’s body with a pistol as he stood on the bridge, the complaint further alleges.
An unnamed witness reportedly helped the boxer kidnap and kill Rodriguez.
Rodríguez was found in a lagoon in the US territory’s capital of San Juan on Saturday.
She was officially identified via dental records on Sunday, Puerto Rico’s Institute of Forensic Science said in a statement.
Verdejo was officially charged in Rodríguez’s death on Sunday night.
He has been charged with kidnapping resulting in death, carjacking resulting in death, intentionally killing an unborn child.
Verdejo could face the death penalty if convicted, though the US Attorney's Office said no decision had yet been made as to whether to pursue execution.
Verdejo and his attorneys previously declined comment, and police said the boxer did not originally cooperate with police and refused to answer questions.
Verdejo represented Puerto Rico at the Olympics in 2012, the same year he became a professional boxer competing in the lightweight division.
His career was temporarily sidetracked after a 2016 motorcycle accident that put him in the hospital. His record is 27-2, with 17 knockouts.
The case has outraged many in Puerto Rico, where another woman was recently found burned to death after she filed a domestic violence complaint that a judge dismissed. A Superior Court judge has announced an investigation into that decision.
Hundreds of people gathered Sunday at a bridge that crosses the lagoon where Rodríguez’s body was found to demand justice for her and other women killed, with some throwing flowers into the water below.
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