Jury convicts former Presidente Supermarket exec of plotting brutal murder of wife’s lover

More than a decade after the body of his wife’s lover was found tortured, disfigured and burned, former Presidente Supermarket executive Manuel Marin was found guilty on Thursday of orchestrating the kidnapping and events that led to the man’s death.

After almost five hours of jury deliberation, Marin was found guilty of kidnapping, conspiracy to kidnap and the manslaughter of Camilo Salazar, the owner of a window blinds installation company who had an on-again, off-again affair with Marin’s wife, Jenny Marin, for about 11 years.

State prosecutors had been seeking a second-degree murder charge. And though jurors opted for the lesser manslaughter count, it still likely means the 69-year-old will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Marin — who’s been imprisoned the past five years and who spent seven years on the lam in Europe after the killing — stood stoic in a blue blazer and white dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck as the verdict was read by Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Miguel de la O. Family and friends on benches behind the defense table, did the same.

It contrasted sharply with the other side of the courtroom, where relief and tears flowed as Salazar’s wife Daisy Holcombe hugged family members and lead state prosecutor Justin Funck. Still, the family hurried out of the courthouse, ignoring a gaggle of press hoping to hear from them.

“We’re happy the family finally has justice,” was all Funck said.

Marin’s defense attorney Jose Quiñon was equally as brief, saying Marin intended to appeal the decision.

“We may disagree with it [the jury’s decision], but we respect it,” he said.

After the verdict, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a prepared statement that jurors seemed to fully realize “Marin’s jealous rage.”

“Marin’s years-long flight to Spain only extended the agony of Salazar’s family as they awaited the justice that finally arrived today,” the state attorney said.

OTHERS HAVE ALREADY PAID PRICE

Marin was the last of four men involved in the killing to face a jury. Three others were previously convicted and imprisoned in the murder, with prosecutors charging that they had been recruited by Marin to abduct and kill Salazar.

Though prosecutors had no witnesses placing Marin at the murder scene and no accounts of any type of agreement to kill Salazar, there was other compelling evidence linking him to his romantic rival’s last hours. Jurors believed the scenario developed by Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorneys Funck and Jonathan Borst, largely based on cellphone-tower tracking that put Marin near the murder site at the edge of the Everglades.

Though jurors didn’t speak after the verdict, it was likely the inability to physically place Marin at the murder scene that led them to the manslaughter charge. He was initially charged with second-degree murder.

Jurors also heard testimony from star witness Ariel “The Panther” Gandulla, a Mixed Martial Arts fighter who accepted a three-year prison sentence in return for testimony at the trial. Gandulla placed Marin with Latin Kings gang member Roberto Isaac — already convicted of killing Salazar — on the day of Salazar’s death and just hours before the murder.

Marin orchestrated a plot, according to Funck and Borst, that involved the recruitment of friend and former Cuban Olympic wrestler Alexis Vila Perdomo, Gandulla and Isaac. They said that on the day Salazar was murdered, Perdomo organized the events on his cellphone from Las Vegas, while Isaac and Gandulla cornered an unsuspecting Salazar in Coconut Grove near his wife’s office, detained him in plastic handcuffs and stuck him in the backseat of a rented pickup truck.

They then drove to Isaac’s Wynwood home, before dragging Salazar inside for several hours. When Salazar was returned to the truck, his feet were bound as well. From there, and after contacting Marin by cellphone on Isaac’s 53rd attempt of the day, they drove Salazar to a Fort Lauderdale office park where, Gandulla told jurors, they met Marin, who with Isaac then transferred the victim into the hatchback of Marin’s blue Mercedes. As Salazar was being moved, Gandulla, they said, saw his chance and took off in the pickup, driving back to his Kendall apartment.

Using Sunpass coordinates and cellphone-tower tracking, prosecutors said Marin and Isaac drove Salazar to a West Miami-Dade field on the edge of the Everglades, where they bashed in his head, broke his jaw, slit his throat and set the lower extremities of his body on fire with gasoline.

Prosecutors told jurors that Isaac showed up later that night at Gandulla’s apartment to retrieve the truck, smelling like gasoline. Marin’s wife testified during the trial that her husband returned home the same evening wearing the same baseball cap that Gandulla said he saw him wearing when Isaac was transferred into his Mercedes.

A year after the murder Miami-Dade Police caught up with Gandulla at his sister’s home in Orlando and told him of Salazar’s death. Frightened, Gandulla fled with his family to Vancouver, Canada. He returned in 2019 after a visit from Miami-Dade Police and state prosecutors.

Perdomo and Isaac were found guilty of the murder in 2019. Perdomo is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence. Isaac is serving life.

Marin, who owned several supermarkets in South Florida and New Jersey, gave up a luxurious lifestyle when he decided to flee South Florida just a few days after Salazar was murdered. Along with his Lighthouse Point mansion and yacht docked out back, he turned over the keys to his business empire to a son he had with his first wife, prosecutors said.

The son, who was also given power of attorney, worked out a divorce agreement with Jenny Marin for his father in which she got to keep the Lighthouse Point home and collected $30,000 a month in child support and alimony for three years.

Jenny Marin testified that after not hearing much from her ex-husband for several years, she rented a home and flew to Cuba with her two children in early 2018, where they met their father. A few months later, Manuel Marin, a wanted fugitive for four years, walked into the U.S. Embassy in Madrid and turned himself in to the FBI.