MIAMI — A Miami-Dade man already accused in a 2023 motel shooting in Hialeah is now facing a first-degree murder charge in the 2024 fatal shooting of the same victim at a Miami motel, authorities confirmed in an arrest report obtained by Local 10 News on Friday.
The report states that investigators tied Jean Felix Fuentes-Gonzalez, 39, to the Feb. 2, 2024 killing of Rudy Quesada through ballistic evidence, DNA testing and similarities between the Miami homicide and an earlier Hialeah motel shooting that Quesada survived months before his death.
Miami police said officers responded around 12:45 a.m. Feb. 2, 2024, to the Ernesto Motel, located at 4001 W. Flagler St., in reference to a person shot.
Officers said they found Quesada unresponsive on the ground outside Room 18 of the motel with multiple gunshot wounds. Miami Fire Rescue personnel pronounced him dead at the scene at approximately 12:59 a.m., according to the report.
Police said Quesada’s girlfriend, Katherine Lopez, opened the motel room door when officers knocked but told investigators she was unaware of the shooting. She was later taken to the police station for questioning.
They said during an interview hours later, Lopez told detectives she had been in a relationship with Quesada and was living with him at the motel.
She also told investigators that Quesada had previously been shot multiple times in Hialeah by an “unknown suspect,” according to the report.
That earlier shooting occurred on Aug. 10, 2023, at the Hialeah Airport Motel, located at 131 W. Fifth St.
According to investigators, officers responding to that shooting found Quesada suffering from multiple gunshot wounds inside a motel room. He was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center, underwent surgery and survived.
Police said surveillance video from the Hialeah shooting showed the gunman wearing a green skully cap, sunglasses, light-colored work gloves and two-toned shoes. Investigators said the suspect arrived and fled in a stolen vehicle.
According to the report, Quesada later told detectives that during the struggle he removed the skully cap from the shooter’s head. Detectives said they recovered the cap, along with hair strands, from the scene.
Authorities said their investigation later connected Fuentes-Gonzalez to both shootings.
Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputies said they conducted a traffic stop on June 24, 2025, at a U Gas station in Miami and recovered a Polymer 80 9 mm gun from a Toyota Tacoma registered to Fuentes-Gonzalez. Investigators said the gun matched shell casings recovered from the Miami murder scene.
They said Fuentes-Gonzalez and Lopez were both inside the vehicle at the time and were arrested on narcotics charges.
Detectives also confirmed that Fuentes-Gonzalez and Lopez had been in a relationship for more than five years and lived together in southwest Miami-Dade despite having a “reported history of domestic violence.”
Investigators noted the home was near where the stolen vehicle used in the Hialeah shooting had been abandoned.
According to the report, detectives further discovered that Fuentes-Gonzalez had been arrested by Miami police in September 2023 in an unrelated stolen vehicle case while allegedly wearing a long black wig, black skully cap and clothing similar to those worn by the Hialeah shooter.
During that arrest, officers recovered a revolver, sunglasses, work gloves and two-toned sneakers that investigators said were “consistent with items used in the Hialeah shooting.”
Authorities later determined that the revolver matched a projectile recovered from the Hialeah crime scene, according to the report.
Investigators also said Fuentes-Gonzalez had been arrested again in October 2023 after police found him inside a stolen vehicle parked at the Ernesto Motel — the same location where Quesada would later be killed.
According to the report, Miami-Dade crime lab testing confirmed that DNA recovered from the murder weapon matched Fuentes-Gonzalez. Additional testing later found that blood recovered from a shoe inside his backpack matched Quesada’s DNA, investigators said.
The report also states that fiber analysis conducted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found that strands recovered from the Hialeah shooting scene were “consistent” with the wig recovered from Fuentes-Gonzalez during his 2023 arrest.
Fuentes-Gonzalez had previously been charged in connection with the Hialeah shooting, but authorities have now added a first-degree murder charge in Quesada’s killing.
The Chilean national has been jailed since March 15 and remains held without bond at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. Jail records show he also has an immigration hold.
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