Why would a young wannabe comic shoot his elderly neighbor? Murder motive remains mystery
On social media sites, Wesley James Perez posted prolifically. He came across as a goofball, stuffing a Nerf ball in his pants, begging for followers and uploading comedy sketches, once playing patient and psychiatrist.
“It’s almost like a void I’m trying to fill,” he said.
A week ago, Perez reached out to a local South Florida comedian, asking him to promote his videos. “He was saying all types of s***, saying we were going to be millionaires,” South Florida comedian Lewis Mohorn said. “I was going to work with him. He was funny.”
But none of Perez’s posts, nor his acquaintances or minimal criminal history, hinted that the 25-year-old was a killer who would empty a .40-caliber Glock pistol into his elderly neighbor, killing him. Yet that’s exactly what Pembroke Pines police say Perez did Saturday afternoon in a leafy Pembroke Pines subdivision called Tanglewood Lakes.
The victim was Fernando Frias, the father of Miami Herald dining and food critic Carlos Frias.
Perez was charged with first-degree premeditated murder and is being held in the Broward County Jail without bond.
Acquaintances said Perez once worked at a car dealership and a pet store, and was never violent or confrontational. He was, said one friend, “more of a problem solver. He was a good goofy guy that likes to make people laugh.”
Perez’s former lawyer, who represented him on the drunk-driving charge, said Perez was pleasant. “I was shocked to hear the news,” said attorney Jason Kreiss. “There has to be more to the story.”
By Wednesday, four days after the murder, it still wasn’t clear why Perez shot and killed Fernando Frias, although an arrest report suggested the accused killer had some sort of severe psychotic break. Pembroke Pines police detectives — at least publicly — have not offered any type of possible motive for killing Frias, a familiar and well-liked figure in the neighborhood.
According to the heavily redacted arrest report, the 92-year-old Frias was left dead or injured inside his home for more than a day before his body was discovered on Sunday night. That’s largely because Perez — whom police committed to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation two days before charging him with the crime — was so incoherent that it made it difficult for investigators to piece together those clues.
According to a Pembroke Pines police report, this is what happened:
Fernando Frias was shot and killed inside his home on the 10000 block of Southwest 6th Court at about 3 p.m. Saturday. Minutes later, Perez called 911 from his own house next door. Perez “hung up on dispatch repeatedly and was talking incoherent,” the report said.
A neighbor across the street heard the shots but did not call 911. The reason, according to the report. She has seen cops already rushing to Perez’s house, and she assumed they were responding to the gunfire.
At the house, Perez jumped in his pool fully clothed and was “combative” with officers who “had no knowledge of the homicide that just happened,” the report said.
Perez was not arrested but was instead hospitalized under Florida’s Baker Act, which allows police to involuntarily commit someone for a psychiatric evaluation against their will.
The elder Frias’s body was discovered at about 9 p.m. on Sunday, when a family member went to check on him. That person contacted Carlos Frias, who then called 911. Next to the body were multiple shell casings and an empty magazine from a .40 caliber Glock pistol, the police report said.
Officers found surveillance video from a neighbor’s house that was crucial evidence.
The video showed Frias walking next door, then making his way back toward his home with Perez, police told Carlos Frias. Moments later, officers told Carlos Frias that the video showed Perez leaving the victim’s home, his arm flailing, before running back to his own home next door.
Fernando Frias, who lost his wife last May, has recently spent most of his time with his son Carlos and his family in the Miami area. But, Carlos Frias said, his dad headed home last weekend to do some yard work. Carlos Frias said he believes Perez, who has lived at his home with his mother for about three years, has helped his dad do yard work and pick fruit at his home in the past.
Fernando Frias, who was funny and gregarious into his 90s, helped with a video the Miami Herald produced three years ago, in which he and others his age reacted to the goings-on at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami. He seemed to get more of a kick out of the crowd’s antics then most of the other seniors who weighed in.
One of 11 children, Frias arrived in South Florida from Cuba in the late 1960s. He and his brother owned several restaurants before they were seized after Fidel Castro took power in 1959. He served two years in a Cuban prison for trying to escape the island on a speed boat.
No one was at the Perez home Wednesday afternoon in a quiet, manicured dead-end street in Tanglewood Lakes. One neighbor, who asked not to be named, said Perez was quiet but said he often smoked marijuana with his girlfriend. The smell frequently wafted over from his home.
Mohorn, the local comedian, said he spoke once with Perez over the phone. He said while he sensed Perez might have been suffering from some type of depression or anxiety, he never said anything that hinted at future violence.
Perez, a prolific poster on social media, didn’t seem to have much of a following.
In most of the videos he posted on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, Perez acted out crude, nonsensical comedy sketches filmed inside his home, or posed in silly ways: Wearing only underwear and a jacket and a pink bandanna.
Perez posted under the hashtag Flood the Feed, begging for people to respond. “I need your followers, followers, followers, followers, followers, follower ..... I’m trying to make.”
One Instagram post, apparently uploaded after the murder based on the date stamps, showed Perez posing with a small statue of San Lazaro, the Cuban patron saint of the poor and the sick.
“Pray for me. SH** JUST GOT REAL,” he wrote in the caption.
Several hours after Perez was charged with the murder someone replied: “Byeeee murderer.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2020 at 6:11 PM.
