Records reveal new details in Bradenton woman’s fatal stabbing, police say
A Bradenton man accused of killing a woman he was romantically involved with changed his story several times before blood and phone records linked him to her death, police say.
Detectives said the case began Sept. 28 after a 911 caller reported a vehicle had crashed into a mailbox on Eighth Avenue East and that the driver appeared intoxicated before collapsing on the ground. But when officers arrived and found 44-year-old Thania Fuenmayor with her throat slashed, what they thought was a suspected DUI quickly became a homicide investigation.
Newly filed court records describe how investigators tied 69-year-old Francisco Ramos-Moradel to the killing after tracking clues from the bloody scene to his home two blocks away.
An attorney representing Ramos-Moradel did not immediately respond to the Bradenton Herald’s request for comment.
At the scene, police said they found Fuenmayor lying face down near her white Subaru, which was idling in reverse with the driver’s door open. Fuenmayor suffered a deep knife wound to her neck , and paramedics pronounced her dead at 8:43 p.m., according to an arrest report.
Officers wrote in the report that they found “a massive amount of blood in and around the vehicle,” a “bloody knife in the driver’s seat,” a white hat with a “Champs” logo on the passenger floorboard and traces of paint inside the car.
Detectives said those discoveries became key evidence as they began piecing together what happened that night.
Records show investigation trail in Bradenton stabbing
Investigators traced Fuenmayor’s final hours by interviewing witnesses and analyzing data from her phone and iPad to learn who she had last spoken with, according to the arrest report. Police said they found frequent contact with Ramos-Moradel in the hours before her death, including several calls and messages asking where she was.
Police later learned the two had been in a contentious relationship and that Fuenmayor had been trespassed from Ramos-Moradel’s home after an argument last year, according to court records.
Digital records showed the two planned to meet the night she was killed, detectives said. In one voice message, Ramos-Moradel told her they would meet later because he “had money for her,” then sent additional messages asking where she was and why she wasn’t answering, according to the report.
Detectives also spoke with several of Fuenmayor’s friends and roommates to reconstruct her final movements. They told police she had planned to meet someone that evening and mentioned that a relative saw her phone display the name “Francisco” while she was on a call that day, according to the report.
Investigators said those findings suggested Ramos-Moradel was the last person to speak with Fuenmayor before she died.
Around 11 p.m. the night of the killing, detectives walked from the crash scene toward Ramos-Moradel’s nearby home, according to the arrest report. Along the route, police said they found a piece of tissue paper stained with blood, as if it had been wrapped around a bleeding wound.
When detectives arrived at Ramos-Moradel’s home, they said he had fresh cuts on his hands and dried blood on his fingers. Investigators also noticed paint on his bare feet that matched the paint found inside Fuenmayor’s car, according to police.
Detectives brought Ramos-Moradel to the Bradenton Police Department for questioning after he agreed to speak with them, the report said. He initially denied having any recent contact with Fuenmayor and claimed they broke up months earlier. When detectives confronted him with phone records showing frequent calls and messages, police say he changed his story several times.
Ramos-Moradel first told detectives that the last time he spoke with Fuenmayor was in June, but later admitted they talked daily and said she “would not leave him alone,” according to the report. Investigators noted, however, that phone data showed Ramos-Moradel had repeatedly contacted Fuenmayor, sending several messages and voice recordings in the hours before her death.
‘No doubt,’ suspect killed woman, Bradenton police say
Police said Ramos-Moradel also gave conflicting explanations for the cuts on his hands, claiming he injured himself while sharpening a kitchen knife. When detectives asked him to demonstrate, they wrote that his explanation did not match the wounds they observed.
He also told investigators he wore a red hat that night, a detail police said conflicted with video showing him painting earlier that day in a white “Champs” hat, the same style later found in Fuenmayor’s car.
After the interview, detectives said Ramos-Moradel consented to providing DNA and fingerprints to investigators. Crime scene technicians collected several samples, including a swab from the inside of his mouth and another from blood found in his left ear, police said.
According to the arrest report, investigators sent the evidence to Pinellas County Forensic Laboratory for testing. Analysts found that the blood taken from Ramos-Moradel’s ear contained DNA from both him and Fuenmayor, according to an arrest report. Testing also showed that DNA on the handle of the knife recovered from her car matched Ramos-Moradel as the primary contributor, police said.
Investigators said those results further linked Ramos-Moradel to the murder. In the arrest report, a detective wrote that “these findings leave no doubt that Francisco Ramos-Moradel killed Thania Fuenmayor.”
According to court records, police arrested Ramos-Moradel on Oct. 4 in Hillsborough County after Bradenton detectives obtained a warrant the previous day. Tampa police took him into custody before he was transferred to Manatee County, where he was booked into the county jail on a charge of first-degree murder. He remains held without bond.
Ramos-Moradel is scheduled to appear for arraignment Nov. 21 before Circuit Judge Teri Dees, according to court records.
