By MIKE CLARY
Sun Sentinel
KEY LARGO — The residents of Travel Trailer Town first met Noel Sosa-Ruiz about four years ago, when he swam ashore after jumping off a boat that had smuggled him into the U.S. from Cuba.
Five days ago, when Magaly Rivas saw him again, “He looked dazed, stressed,” she said. “He said he had some problems with his wife in Houston.”
Just how serious those problems were did not become clear until Friday, when, with the Coast Guard closing in, the 41-year-old Sosa-Ruiz shot and killed himself in a stolen boat that was out of gas and drifting just 20 miles off Cuba’s north coast.
Back in Key Largo, Rivas, 39, and her boyfriend Juan Carlos Leyva, 42, the boat’s owner, found a note in a van Sosa-Ruiz had been driving.
“I am condemned to die because I killed my wife and I have to leave,” read the note, written in Spanish, according to Rivas. “Forgive me.”
In Houston, Sosa-Ruiz was indeed wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of 29-year-old Yodanis Cruz-Rojas, his common-law wife and mother of their two children, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office soon learned.
Cruz-Rojas was at work at a dental office on Oct. 27 when Sosa-Ruiz walked in, fatally shot her and fled, according to Houston police.
After the shooting, Sosa-Ruiz, a licensed security guard, apparently made his way from Texas to his sister’s house in Kissimmee. There he picked up the van he drove to Key Largo.
When Sosa-Ruiz arrived from Cuba, the residents of the trailer park — some of them Cuban immigrants themselves — assisted in his resettlement. Leyva even made a call to a cousin in Houston, who helped him find a job, according to Rivas.
But when he showed up unexpectedly last week, things were different, said Rivas.
"He seemed anxious,” she said. “He said he came here just to get away for a while. He wanted to stay busy.”
Given a room in a neighbor’s house, Sosa-Ruiz helped Leyva work on a small boat, while incessantly asking to go out on a fishing trip. Rivas said she and Leyva told him the seas were too rough for fishing.
On Thursday, Leyva was scheduled to go into the hospital for medical tests. He would stay overnight. And that is when Sosa-Ruiz apparently saw his chance, said Rivas.
Neighbors heard the engine on Leyva’s 21-foot Mako center console roar to life between 1 and 2 a.m. Friday. When Leyva returned from the hospital Friday morning, he found the boat gone and the note in the van.
After the boat theft was reported to the Sheriff’s Office, the Coast Guard was alerted, according to Deputy Becky Herrin.
At 10:30 a.m. on Friday, the Coast Guard in Sector Key West got word from the crew of a Customs and Border Protection Dash-8 aircraft: Two red flares had been fired from a center console vessel that appeared to be dead in the water and in need of assistance.
The crew of the cutter Nantucket was diverted to the vessel's position, and an Ocean Sentry fixed-wing aircraft crew from Air Station Miami flew over to drop a radio, raft, food and a pump to the vessel.
Sosa-Ruiz retrieved only the radio and the pump. He used gasoline from the pump to get his engine started and took off toward Cuba, the Coast Guard reported.
But that fuel did not last long. Drifting again, the stolen vessel was spotted by crew aboard the cargo ship Four Nabucco about 11 miles southwest of Cay Sal Island in the Bahamas. They reported the boat’s position to the Coast Guard.
Four Nabucco crew members took down the vessel's registration numbers. The numbers matched Leyva’s boat.
The Nantucket found Sosa-Ruiz and the Mako about 6 p.m. Friday. As the 110-foot patrol boat neared, Sosa-Ruiz fired one shot directly into his chest. The boarding team approached the vessel by smallboat, went aboard and confirmed that he was dead.
A .40 caliber Berretta, believed to be the gun Sosa-Ruiz used on himself, was found in the boat, said Herrin.
The Nantucket brought the vessel and Sosa-Ruiz's body back to the Florida Keys on Saturday. His remains are currently in the custody of the Monroe County Medical Examiner's Office.
In a statement, Coast Guard commander Capt. Pat DeQuattro said, “Through close coordination with our partner agencies, we were able to apprehend and keep an extremely dangerous fugitive from fleeing the country.”
But as they drove to Key West on Sunday to recover their boat, Rivas and Leyva had a much more personal take on their close call with the accused killer.
“This was just a freaky situation,” said Rivas. “I get even more stressed when I start thinking about it now. Who knows what might have happened, to me, Juan Carlos, or my two kids?
“I’m just thankful.”
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