Hillsborough Prosecutors Push For Death Penalty In Case Of Woman, 4-Year-Old’s Murders

TAMPA — Hillsborough County prosecutors plan to pursue the death penalty against a Guatemalan man who they believe is responsible for the savage murders of his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter in east Hillsborough County last month.

In addition to additional allegations, 31-year-old Angel Gabriel Cuz Choc is accused of stabbing Amalia Coc-Choc de Pec and her daughter Estrella Anastasia Pec Coc twice in the last month, causing horrible injuries.

The state of Florida cites a number of aggravating circumstances in a written notice sent to the court last Friday, which it claims support the death penalty—the worst punishment permitted by state law. These elements include the fact that both killings were “particularly heinous, atrocious or cruel,” and that one of the victims was a kid.

Cuz Choc is also believed to have been involved in two murders in his native Guatemala, according to a news release from the State Attorney’s Office on Wednesday. Information regarding the offenses was unavailable.

The state acted unusually quickly in filing its notice of death penalty. These notifications usually follow a defendant’s arraignment; Cuz Choc’s arraignment is set for next week.

A thorough report of the murder investigation was included in a court document the state filed following his apprehension.

On April 24, in the afternoon, a 911 call was made. Amalia Coc-Choc de Pec, 36, was discovered by a guy in a shed next to a house on Sumner Road, just north of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Dover, covered by a tarp.

When the sheriff’s deputies came, they discovered she was dead and had suffered serious injuries to her body, neck, and face. When they got inside the house, they discovered her 4-year-old daughter unconscious in a bathtub with running water. The young lady had stab wounds to her head and neck.

According to the paper, two hours or so before the 911 call, the woman was seen screaming as a man chased her outside on surveillance footage from an adjacent residence. As the man brought her to the location where she was subsequently discovered dead, she didn’t stop screaming.

The two brothers of Cuz Choc were questioned by investigators. Cuz Choc contacted him that afternoon, according to one of them. The record states that his brother bid him “farewell.” Less than two hours after the killings, according to the other brother, Cuz Choc contacted him and admitted to the killings.

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According to one of his brothers, Cuz Choc explained to him that his fiancée had gone out with a friend “for three hours instead of her allotted hour and a half,” which is why they were killing people. This information is stated in the paper.

The majority of the 17-hour manhunt was conducted by sheriff’s deputies in the rural area near the crime scene, where the terrain is marked by strawberry fields, dense shrubbery, and a forest. The following day, the sheriff’s dogs discovered Cuz Choc hidden two miles away from the scene of the crime in a thicket of foliage.

Throughout the court file, it is made clear that he entered the nation illegally and that, even if granted bail, he would probably leave again. Cuz Choc admitted to crossing the border into the United States last September with the help of a smuggler, sometimes referred to as a “coyote,” in an interview with a detective following his detention.

According to a news release from the state attorney’s office, he stated that he met Amalia Coc-Choc de Pec on Facebook when they were both residing in New Jersey. He found work as a day laborer, so the mother and her daughter relocated to Florida and moved in with him.

Cuz Choc’s attorney, the Hillsborough Public Defender’s Office, chose not to argue against the state’s request that he be held in jail without access to bail while he awaits trial.

At least 13 Hillsborough prosecutions are still continuing, with the state requesting the death penalty in each case. Since Suzy Lopez took office as Hillsborough County’s state attorney in August 2022, there have been more local cases involving the death penalty. Five death penalty cases were pending in the office at the time.