The case connects two families across decades and raises hard questions about punishment, release and Florida’s death penalty system.
A Florida man killed a woman and was later released from prison. He killed again and was sentenced to death in a Miami courtroom Friday morning, when Rafael Andres, 62, was condemned to die by execution for the 2005 beating, stabbing and strangling of Fariñas, a 31-year-old La Carreta waitress.
The case took place in a Miami courtroom before Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Zachary James, who accepted a jury’s death recommendation. The death sentence matters beyond one defendant because Andres’ earlier murder conviction — the 1987 killing of Linda Azcarreta — became part of the path that led prosecutors to seek Florida’s harshest punishment.
A sentence built on two killings
According to the Tampa Bay Times, Andres sat quietly in court as James read the sentence. He was shackled, wearing red jail clothing, with his attorney Joyce Brenner beside him.
The sentence sends Andres back toward Florida’s Death Row after a long legal detour. He had originally been sentenced to death in 2015, but he received a new sentencing trial because of constitutional issues tied to Florida’s death penalty system.
In November, a jury recommended death by a 9-3 vote. The judge had the final say and chose execution. The Times reported that Andres’ sentence is the first in more than a decade to place a Miami-Dade inmate on Death Row.
That distinction gives the case local weight in Miami-Dade, where death sentences have become less common even as Florida has continued to use capital punishment.
The first victim’s son returned
The most haunting part of the case is that the second sentencing pulled two families into the same courtroom orbit.
Andres was convicted in 1988 of stabbing Linda Azcarreta, 32, a friend of his wife. He said he killed her in March 1987 during a frenzy of drug use. Afterward, he cashed a $100 check that had been meant for her.
Andres pleaded guilty and received a nine-year sentence. He was released after serving about 18 months because of good behavior behind bars, according to the Times.
Outside court after the new death sentence, Rene Azcarreta, Linda’s son, embraced prosecutors and stood with Fariñas’ sister, Lisbet Fariñas. He said the families were permanently linked because Andres had taken both women from them.
How prosecutors described 2005
The 2005 killing happened after Andres, working as a handyman, had been hired to renovate the efficiency where Fariñas lived with her boyfriend.
Prosecutors said Andres used a spare key to enter the home. They said he beat Fariñas in the face until she gave him the PIN for her ATM card.
According to prosecutors, Andres then held her wrists and stabbed her three times in the chest. When she did not die, he put a dish towel over her face and strangled her with a rice-cooker cord.
Prosecutors said he tried to set a fire to destroy evidence, but a neighbor had seen him leaving. That detail became part of the case showing planning, concealment and the violent sequence that led to the death recommendation.
The defense argued for mercy
Andres’ defense did not argue that the killing was minor. Instead, his lawyers focused on reasons they said should spare his life.
They argued that years of cocaine abuse had damaged his brain. They also presented Andres as someone who had changed during his years in prison, turning toward religion and trying to mentor other inmates.
During a Spencer hearing, where defense attorneys can make final arguments before sentencing, several Death Row inmates spoke favorably about Andres. One was Chadwick Willacy, who described Andres as a prison neighbor and said they discussed religion, family and recipes. Willacy was later executed in April.
Andres also addressed the judge. He said he had never claimed to be an angel and had dedicated his life to Jesus Christ. The Times reported that he did not mention his victims or the impact on their families, instead saying that executing him would not bring them back.
Families pressed the human cost
The families’ accounts put the legal arguments in stark human terms.
Lisbet Fariñas testified about losing her sister and said she still struggled to understand why it happened to her family. Rene Azcarreta described finding his mother’s body as a 7-year-old boy coming home from school.
His message to the court was that Andres had been given another chance after the first killing and used it to destroy another family. He called it “the same hands, the same violence,” according to the Times.
That history was central to the prosecution’s case for death. The state pointed to the brutality of Fariñas’ killing and to Andres’ earlier murder as reasons execution was warranted.
What remains unresolved
The sentence does not mean an execution is imminent. Florida death penalty cases commonly involve years of appeals, post-conviction motions and review in state and federal courts.
It also leaves broader questions that one sentencing cannot fully answer. Andres’ early release after the 1987 killing is now part of the public outrage around the case, but the record described by the Times does not fully explain the prison rules, sentencing practices or release calculations that allowed him to leave after 18 months.
For death penalty supporters, the case is likely to be cited as an example of why prosecutors seek capital punishment for repeat murderers. For opponents, it raises different concerns: whether the state should execute even people convicted of the worst crimes, and whether a second sentencing decades later can truly repair what was lost.
For the two families, the court’s decision was more immediate. One woman was killed in 1987. Another was killed in 2005. On Friday in Miami, the man convicted in both cases was sentenced to die.
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