The suspect accused in the February fatal shooting of 19-year-old Barry University student Priscilla Torres in Little Havana has been arrested.
Jamie Luis Plasencia, 18, who is being held at Miami-Dade County's Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, faces a first-degree murder charge.
Torres, a freshman student, was found shot at about 5 a.m. on Feb. 10 soon after she texted a friend that she was driving back to her university dormitory.
Miami Police Department officers responded to a call of shots being fired near NW 29th Avenue and 11th Street. Torres was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where she later died.
Police said a burnt car matching the description of Torres' was spotted in Miami Gardens days after she died.
“I think it’s awful. Very sad. She’s so young and I feel awful for her family and she was like really sweet but quiet,” Legacy Brooks, a student at Barry University, said of Torres.
According to an arrest report, a witness heard a woman screaming before hearing two gunshots. The witness then walked out to the street and saw a vehicle circle around the victim.
A person inside the vehicle fired two more shots at the woman and fled the scene, the witness said. The woman was later identified as Torres.
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On Feb. 13, officers found the vehicle Torres was last seen driving, which was reported stolen, fully engulfed in flames.
Investigators spoke with Torres' friends, who said Torres had a friend named Jamie.
Police were able to determine Jamie's identity to be that of Jamie Luis Plasencia – last seen on surveillance video exiting Torres' dorm the night before she was killed, according to the report.
During a police interview on Feb. 20, Plasencia told detectives that he last saw Torres in January. He also attempted to conceal a burn on his right hand, the report adds.
The detective assigned to the case said a Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers tip on March 14 stated that Plasencia killed Torres, stole her vehicle and then burned it.
Plasencia was arrested on Tuesday after agreeing to undergo a follow-up interview at the Miami Police homicide office.
