Aventura, FL: Police: Dead boy's father killed himself

BY DIANA MOSKOVITZ AND JARED GOYETTE
dmoskovitz@MiamiHerald.com

The boy's father, Erasmo Reina Moreno, was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot.
In recent months, the couple living in the posh Aventura Lakes home had grown unhappy and angry, fighting so violently at times that local police had to intervene to keep them from physically hurting each other.

This week, Aventura police were again at the home of the Moreno family -- only this time it was to investigate the shooting death of the couple's 10-year-old boy at the hands of his father.

Police on Friday said Erasmo Reina Moreno, 72, shot his son Thursday afternoon before driving off and shooting himself in an apparent murder-suicide. Court records and neighbors said the boy's name was Esteban Reina Raigoso. Police did not release the child's name on Friday.

His body was found at 3:45 p.m. by his 31-year-old mother, Kathlin Y. Raigoso. She then called police who spent more than 11 hours searching for Moreno, who was found dead in his brown Jeep about 1:50 a.m Friday in the parking lot of Tony Roma's, 18050 Collins Ave., Sunny Isles Beach.

Police were mum Friday on Moreno's motive for the shooting, but court records and neighbors paint a portrait of an estranged couple from Colombia with a long-troubled relationship.

On Thursday morning, the very day of the shooting, a paternity petition was filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court to work out a plan for child support and visitation times for the couple's two young children, ages 10 and six months.

Moreno had signed the paternity petition on Jan. 26.

In the court documents, Moreno accused Raigoso of being aggressive toward him. ``She verbally abuses him in front of the children, calling him a decrepit old man and threatening him with violence in the event he does not vacate his own home,'' noted the document.

The paternity petition was part of a collection of court documents that chronicled the couple's violent relationship.

Last August, Moreno was arrested on charges of domestic violence after he struck Raigoso with a dumbbell. At the time, she was eight months pregnant with their second child, according to police.

That same day, a firearm was found in the home and taken by Aventura authorities, who kept the weapon.

The disposition of the charges against Moreno was unclear, but he pleaded not guilty and was placed in pre-trial diversion.

At the time of the incident, Raigoso got a restraining order against Moreno, but in October she filed to have it lifted.

In her petition to the judge, she wrote in Spanish the following: ``I have decided to lift the restraining order and give my children the opportunity to live with their father. I think that he, my husband, will act better now in his home and change his attitude.

The opportunity soured.

At the time of shooting, the couple was living apart. But Moreno still had access to their Aventura Lakes gated community home in the 3100 block of Northeast 211th Street.