I’ve read many stories of people who have lived from gunshot woulds. And even a few cases a few cases where bullets had been left in the body. But this bellow case is unusual.
The death of Daniel Restrepo on Nov. 30 in Royal Palm Beach was a murder that began 12 years ago in Medellin, Colombia.
Restrepo was 13 then and his father, Gonzalo Restrepo, was driving him to school.
The father had already survived nine gunshots, but politically motivated assassins still wanted him dead.That day, the shooters tried again.
They stood on either side of the car and fired. They missed their target, but a bullet tore through Daniel’s head.
Daniel survived and the family relocated to Florida. But Daniel never fully recovered, suffering from seizures until his death at age 25.
On Nov. 29, he went to bed at his father’s home on Misty Oaks Circle, had one of his seizures and didn’t wake up.
The Palm Beach County Medical Examiner concluded the manner of death is homicide, death due to gunshot-induced seizure.
Which makes his demise a murder case, one nation and 12 years removed from the fatal gunshot.
“It’s really strange – the death at least a dozen years later; throw in the fact it’s out of the country, it’s really unique,” said Detective Steve Ultsh, who is investigating the case for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
The sheriff’s office will present the case to the state attorney’s office here, but it is most likely to end up back where it began – in Colombia.
Detectives have contacted officials in Medellin to find out what happened to the men initially charged in the shooting and provide information for a potential murder case, Ultsh said.
But for Gonzalo Restrepo, the shooting is a thing of the past. Reached by phone at his home Wednesday, he said he didn’t want to talk about the circumstances surrounding his son’s shooting.
And he doesn’t blame the gunmen for his son’s death.
He blames a change in the seizure medication prescribed by doctors here and has hired a lawyer. He declined to talk about it further, declining to name the doctor or lawyer.
The shooting “wasn’t the cause of my son’s death. The incident was here, with a doctor who changed his medication. He took it away, and two days later, he didn’t wake up alive.”
Daniel’s mother, Nora Restrepo, 47, declined to comment from her home in Deerfield Beach.
I have never heard of a murder case being brought on someone years after the shooting occurred.
