Police seek killer, motive after 5 slain

A woman, her adult children and boyfriend of eight years are found dead in Lake Worth.

©Associated Press
September 24, 2002

LAKE WORTH -- The bodies of a man, woman and her three adult children, including an expectant mother, were found over the weekend in what appeared to be related slayings, police said Monday.

Lt. Susan Wellborn would not say how the victims, who ranged in age from 17 to 52, were killed. She said the person responsible must have been "somebody very angry or upset over something," and that police were trying to identify suspects and a motive.

The body of Carmen Valentin, 42, was found by police about 4 a.m. Sunday on a roadway in Lake Worth, about 7 miles south of West Palm Beach.

At 10 p.m., the four others were found several blocks away at their home.

They were identified as Valentin's children -- Juan Carlos Valentin, 17, Elizabeth Valentin, 22, and Damarus Valentin, 19, who was eight months pregnant -- and Ismael Gomez, 52, Carmen Valentin's boyfriend of eight years, who lived with them.

Police were searching for Gomez's nephew, Michael Milan Roman, 29, who also lived at the home. Wellborn said Roman was not a suspect and could be in danger.

Relatives said a note from Roman was found in the home.

"He said he was sorry that happened and that he was going to move," said Angel Alicea, Carmen Valentin's nephew.

"He's the nephew, and he won't return," Alicea said. "We really don't understand that -- don't understand any of it."

Police declined to comment about any evidence collected.

Alicea said that when relatives heard of the deaths, they went to the home and saw Gomez's body in a truck in the driveway beneath a car cover. The bodies of Valentin's three children reportedly were found inside the house.

Melvin Alicea, another nephew of Carmen Valentin, said he thought his aunt might have tried to go for help but died before she could get far.

Angel Alicea said Gomez and Carmen Valentin, both natives of Puerto Rico, met through family in Florida more than eight years ago.

"From first sight, they've been together. And he really took to the kids," Angel Alicea said.

Damarus Valentin, who was a few weeks away from having her first child, worked with her mother at a nearby hotel. She was a front desk clerk, her mother a launderer. Juan Carlos Valentin was a senior at Lake Worth High School.

"Our family is a typical family. We never had problems," said Angel Alicea, who gathered Monday with about 20 family members at the home of Magdalena Ruiz, Carmen Valentin's sister. "We always were together. Always."

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