Herald food editor’s father shot and killed by neighbor in Pembroke Pines, cops say

Fernando Frías may not have lived at his Pembroke Pines home any more, but he often returned to his old neighborhood to visit friends and family.

The 92-year-old would pick fruit from the trees in his backyard and deliver it to his neighbors.

“That was what he did,” said his son Carlos Frías, food and dining editor for the Miami Herald. “I do think he missed the place.”

Saturday would be the last time the elder Frías would visit the house he built with his late wife, Iraida, in the late 1980s, one of the first homeowners in Tanglewood Lakes.

Fernando Frías was found shot to death Sunday evening in his home near the intersection of Southwest 100th Avenue and Sixth Court, Pembroke Pines police said. On Tuesday, police arrested his neighbor, Wesley Perez, 24. Perez, who lived with his mother, has been charged with murder.

“He would go out of his way to help his neighbors, even to his detriment,” Carlos Frías said Tuesday. “He is a loss for our family — and he’s a loss to anyone who met him. He was that kind of special, giving person.”

Police haven’t released any details about the crime, or what led them to Perez. The department did indicate that Perez, who was convicted for misdemeanor DUI with property damage or injury in 2017, knew the victim.

Carlos Frías said Perez, who had lived in a home nearby for three to five years, helped his dad with yard work once or twice.

Fernando Frías, who was originally from Cuba, came to South Florida in the late 1960s. He was 42, one of 11 children who grew up in the rural province of Oriente before moving to Havana.

He and his four brothers would become successful businessmen, owning five restaurants and cafes before the Cuban government seized them when it nationalized private businesses after Fidel Castro assumed power in 1959.

Frías served two years in a Cuban prison for trying to escape the island on a speed boat. His son tells the story of how his father heard 17 men being executed on his first night in jail.

He then had to work hard labor in Cuba’s agricultural fields for two years before he could earn an exit visa.

His son wrote a column in March 2016 when he joined the Miami Herald, calling his dad “a man in an apron.”

Frías wrote about growing up and watching his father cook in the back of the Carol City jewelry store they owned for 23 years, Iris Joyeria, named for his wife.

“He would whip up lunch for us in between selling affordable earrings and garish gold chains to locals,” Frías wrote. “What always struck me was the quantity. He cooked enough potaje and ajiaco in that cazuela de presion to feed a family of Duggars, though it was only him, my mom and me.”

The elder Frías had learned how to cook in a forced labor camp in Cuba, where he often cooked for 80 men. Even though he had never worked as a chef, he volunteered to cook to avoid working in the fields.

Frías said his dad had been living with him, moving in after his beloved wife of 46 years died in May. She was 86.

“We really enjoyed having him home living with us, and we were going to sell the old house and do an expansion of our house,” he said. “I just met with a contractor about that project.”

In 2017, the Herald interviewed Fernando Frías as part of a video on seniors reacting to Ultra Music Festival, which features reverberating electronic music.

Fernando Frías got a kick out of the clips showing festival-goers dancing to the music.

“I mean, I used to dance, but nice and slow and close, which is what we liked,” he said. “Oh, this is fantastic.”

How he described the dancing: “They look like cockroaches upside down, cockroaches who have been sprayed with poison.”

“I may be 90 years old, but this makes my heart feel 25,” he said with a chuckle.

Carlos Frías said his dad always kept it real: “My dad was as genuine as what was in that video.’’

Miami Herald staff writer David J. Neal contributed to this report.

This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 9:52 PM.