Former WBO champ Felix Verdejo sentenced in gruesome murder
The former WBO lightweight champion has received two life sentences for the kidnap and murder of his pregnant girlfriend in Puerto Rico.
The disgraced former WBO Latino and Intercontinental Lightweight champion Felix Verdejo will spend the rest of his life in federal prison.
In April 2021, Verdejo’s girlfriend Keishla Marlen Rodriguez was found in San Juan Lagoon after a three-day search. She had been abducted, drugged, and shot execution-style before being dumped in the shallow lagoon in Puerto Rico.
She had been one month pregnant with Verdejo’s child at the time.
Verdejo and an accomplice Luis Antonio Cadiz-Martinez were both charged with her abduction and two counts of murder, one each for Ms Rodriguez and her unborn child. Cadiz-Martinez pled guilty and has not yet been sentenced, while Verdejo pled not guilty and was convicted by a jury in a San Juan federal court on charges of Kidnapping Resulting in Death and Death of an Unborn child.
Verdejo was sentenced to two life sentences to run concurrently.
Judge Pedro A Delgado-Hernandez said in the sentencing, “Your actions cost the lives of two people in a horrendous way. You destroyed a family. Their lives changed forever. There is no going back.”
Verdejo and Rodriguez had known each other since middle school and had maintained a friendship and later a relationship for years.
On April 29, 2021, Rodríguez told her mother Keila Ortiz that she was going to tell Verdejo that she was pregnant. Despite her mother’s warnings that Verdejo was dangerous, Rodriguez met with Verdejo and Cadiz-Martinez at her apartment. When she got into Verdejo’s SUV, he punched her in the face and injected her with an unknown drug.
Verdejo and Cadiz-Martinez then bound Rodriguez’s hands and feet and weighted her down with a concrete block. In the early morning, they shot her in the head and dumped her body in the lagoon. Afterward, Verdejo fired at her body from the bridge.
Verdejo had represented Puerto Rico at the 2012 London Olympics and later was 27-2 with 17 knockouts as a professional. He will now spend the rest of his life behind bars.