The south-eastern city of San Pedro de Macoris, best known as the hometown of several big-name baseball players (such as Sammy Sosa) and for its UCE university that trains foreign and Dominican medical students, has been shaken by two unusually violent incidents this week.
On Wednesday, police confirmed the double murder of lawyer and PLD congressional candidate Federico Nina Ceara and his chauffeur, Pedro Tomas Pacheco. Claudio Martinez, Nina Ceara?s bodyguard, sustained gunshot wounds in the same skirmish.
Nearly 24 hours later, the maintenance manager for the Cogentrix power plant in San Pedro, 55-year-old American Craig Roger Hiserote was ambushed at 1pm on the Avenida Circunvalacion in his Mitsubishi pickup by men traveling on a Yamaha motorcycle. The men fired several shots, striking Hiserote in the head and leaving him dead. The motive of theft has been ruled out, as those who came to the victim?s assistance found money, cell phone and a gun on his person.
As reported in Hoy and El Caribe newspapers, police suspect there is no link between the two crimes and that the Hiserote murder is related to his ?personal affairs.?
Diario Libre reports that at the time of his death, Hiserote was in the process of divorcing his wife, identified as Judy from whom he had been separated and had ?serious inconveniences? and is the mother of a four-year-old child of the deceased. The newspaper says that Hiserote had been living in the DR for about 10 years and was previously employed at the Smith-Enron power plant in Puerto Plata.
El Caribe newspaper reports that the police have detained a former wife of the murdered man. Initial speculation, however, could not help but point to more sinister elements, possibly connected to the Cogentrix-Mejia administration bickering over debts owed. The police chief of the region says one cannot rule out a personal problem being the cause of the murder and relayed to the newspaper a prior incident that had occurred in which a jealous woman injured another woman with whom the American supposedly lived.
The police reported that Nina?s murderers used an Uzi gun, while Hiserote?s assassins chose 9mm pistols as their weapons.