The trial of a North Miami woman accused of gunning down a man to avenge her husband's death started Wednesday.
Janepsy Carballo was charged with second-degree murder when she shot and killed Ilan Nissim, her husband's business partner, at her home in 2008. The shooting happened just a month after her spouse, Orlando Mesa, and the couple's son were shot outside their home on April 20, 2008. Mesa was killed and the young boy was injured but survived. Mesa's murder was never solved.
Carballo told investigators that she suspected Nissim to be the man who shot her husband and son, and that she lived in fear of him.
She said she didn't expect him to visit her home that night and that his visit turned violent. Carballo said she shot Nissim in self-defense and wanted her case to be dismissed before trial under the Stand Your Ground law, which allows people who feel threatened to use deadly force to defend themselves.
Yet, a judge ruled in 2012 that the evidence did not support Carballo's story and that she intentionally shot Nissim.
“The inescapable conclusion is that the defendant lured [Nissim] to the home and killed him,” Judge Beth Bloom wrote in the court order.
Prosecutors argue Carballo was out to avenge her husband's death, saying she lured Nissim to her home the night she fatally shot him six times, three times in his back, twice in his buttocks and once in his forearm.
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The judge wrote that six gunshots were “fired into the victim from the back to his front, consistent with the victim retreating from the defendant.”
Carballo's case is now before a jury. In trial, she will have another opportunity to say she fired in self-defense.
