By Elliott Jones
Posted July 23, 2010 at 12:13 p.m., updated July 23, 2010 at 5:28 p.m.
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FORT PIERCE — A man who fatally shot his wife four times and then turned a rifle on himself — as his young son played nearby — now is charged with premeditated murder and possession of ammunition by a convicted felon, arrest reports show.
Jose Raya, 44, of the 2800 block of South 27th Street, Fort Pierce, was arrested Thursday in connection with the shooting around noon Sunday in the driveway of the couple’s home.
It is his second arrest on murder charges. In 1986, he was charged with murder in the slaying of a man at the Old Lone Star Bar in Indiantown, court records show.
That charge was reduced because of problems with evidence. He pleaded no contest to attempted manslaughter. The plea deal included a year in jail.
Following the Sunday shooting, he was hospitalized in critical condition at the Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute. He was released Thursday and investigators brought him in for questioning. Through an interpreter, he asked for an attorney and then was put in the St. Lucie County Jail’s medical unit.
Sheriff’s investigators quoted Raya’s daughter, about age 8, as saying her father had been drinking beer and he and her mother, Yolanda Aguilar, argued for two days.
The son, about age 5, was outside with the couple on Sunday and told investigators “his father fell off a four-wheel vehicle (at the home) and hit his head. His mother started screaming at his father ... and saw his father hit his mother with a gun.”
The youth ran inside for his sister and when they came back out, “They saw their mother not moving and a lot of blood,” while blood was coming from their father’s mouth and nose, reports show.
An autopsy of Aguilar showed a bruise and that she died of four gunshot wounds to the chest, abdomen, right leg and left hand.
Raya was treated for a head wound.
The children were put in the care of a local relative, officials said.
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