Ishnar Marie Lopez-Ramos, center, recruited Alexis Ramos-Rivera, left, and Glorianmarie Quiñones-Montes, right, to murder her romantic rival. But the hit team targeted the wrong woman and instead killed Janice Zengotita-Torres. (Mugshots of Lopez-Ramos and Quiñones-Montes: Osceola County Corrections; mugshot of Ramos-Rivera: Florida Department of Corrections)
The woman who plotted a murder-for-hire against a romantic rival — only for the hit team to mistakenly target the wrong woman — has been convicted and sentenced on all charges. Jurors found Ishnar Marie Lopez-Ramos, 41, guilty on Monday, and she must serve consecutive punishments: life in prison without parole for first-degree murder, 40 years for kidnapping with intent to inflict bodily harm or terrorize, 30 years for carjacking, and 15 years for robbery.
Deputies in Osceola County, Florida, said she was into a man in a relationship with another woman. She hired Alexis Ramos-Rivera, 28, and his girlfriend, Glorianmarie Quiñones-Montes, 27, to kill this romantic rival. But when the duo tracked the woman to a Ross clothing store in Kissimmee, Florida, they believed they saw her walking out of the business. It wasn’t her. It was Janice Zengotita-Torres, 42.
Ramos-Rivera and Quiñones-Montes followed her to her apartment, forced her to get into the trunk of her vehicle, then brought her to an apartment in Orlando, deputies said. They realized their mistake at some point, but instead of letting her go, they tied her up and covered her head in duct tape and garbage bags. Ramos beat her unconscious, and Zenogotita-Torres died from suffocation.
Cable company employees discovered the victim’s body, and the suspects were arrested within days.
Ramos-Rivera was sentenced in 2021 for his murder case.
Quiñones-Montes accepted a plea deal last year for 22 years in prison, according to MyNews13.
“We worried there was a chance for a lesser sentence, and unfortunately, time passed by and what was promised at first now is not there anymore,” Zengotita-Torres’s niece, Carmen Janiselle Hernandez Zengotita, told the outlet at the time.
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Hernandez Zengotita remembered her aunt as “beautiful’ and supportive. The family made a garden to honor Janice.
“She might not be physically alive, but it reminds us that somehow she is with us, whether it’s in spirit, or in our hearts, or in our minds,” Hernandez Zengotita said.
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