MIAMI – Amaury Alvarenga told police officers that she walked into her apartment in Miami to find her 11-year-old daughter, Martha Guzman, curled up on the floor dead — with a knife sticking out of her neck and cuts on her wrists.
Prosecutors said DNA and surveillance video pointed to Alvarenga’s ex-boyfriend Miguel Ruiz Lobo, who was standing trial for the 2014 murder on Monday in Miami-Dade County court.
Alvarenga’s daughter Stefanie Rivera also saw her little sister’s body.
“Her eyes were shut, she had been crying,” Rivera said in Spanish during her testimony.
Jurors listened to Alvarenga’s frantic 911 call. Officer Victor Palacios was the first to respond to the apartment on June 25, 2014, at 834 NW 4 St., in Miami’s Little Havana, also testified.
Palacios said he remembers quickly approaching Martha to attempt CPR. Alvarenga and Rivera stood by as he performed chest compressions and ventilation, but it was hopeless.
“I heard and saw the air that I was putting in coming out through her neck,” Palacios said in a somber tone after taking a deep breath.
Officer Suney Lastra, a Miami Police Department veteran, was in tears during her testimony in court.
“This one was an 11-year-old — somebody innocent that did not deserve this,” Lastra said.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. During her opening statement, Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Laura Adams said Ruiz Lobo killed Martha while she was home alone.
“This was personal,” Adam said adding that Ruiz Lobo had blamed Martha for the breakup with Alvarenga and he had cut her wrists in an attempt to fool others into thinking that she had committed suicide.
“She was a joyful girl who liked to play,” Rivera later said in Spanish during her testimony.
The medical examiner reported the stabber had slashed Martha’s wrists so deep that the knife cut through her tendons, so she couldn’t have stabbed herself in the neck, police said.
“There’s no way that a suicide victim would go that deep to be able to cut almost her entire wrist off her arm,” Manuel Orosa, the then-Miami Police chief, said after the murder.
Detectives believe Martha fought back and that helped them to identify her killer. Investigators identified DNA under her fingernails, and it belonged to Ruiz Lobo.
Detectives also found surveillance video that showed Ruiz Lobo arriving at the crime scene shortly before 10:30 a.m. and leaving at about 11 a.m., according to police.
Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez was presiding over the trial for first-degree murder and occupied burglary.
Ruiz Lobo, who pleaded not guilty, has been in the custody of Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation since July 21, 2014, after a grand jury indicted him when he was 42 years old.
Records show Ruiz Lobo marked his 51st birthday in March at the Metrowest Detention Center.