A 53-year-old woman, Mrs. Cuyoris Palacio, will face the inevitable reality of laying her husband of thirty-five years, Romel Alexander Palacio, 54, to rest after doctors at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital have given him a zero percent chance of survival due to the massive head and body injuries he sustained yesterday, Sunday, June 19, when he was shot six times in his Jane Usher Boulevard home.
Palacio is currently listed in a critical state and is on life support. The doctors, Palacio’s family told us, have no hope that he will recover.
Palacio was shot in front of his wife, Cuyoris, who was sewing, and a young relative, a minor. Cuyoris and the relative were in the living room of their bungalow home yesterday around 11:15 a.m., and Palacio, who was sick, was lying down in the couple’s bedroom when two gunmen, one Hispanic and the other of dark complexion, walked in and ordered the occupants to remain still.
Cuyoris told us today that the burglar-barred door of her home was not secured, and that is how the two men were able to walk in without making any noise. Cuyoris was sitting with her back to the door, while her relative was seated with his body turned to the adjacent wall and television set.
The dark-skinned man first walked in and passed the living room area and stood in the corridor, while the Hispanic man stood at the door beside Cuyoris, who was in the chair, and ordered, “Nobody move”.
At this point, Cuyoris told us, she screamed out for her husband, and that is when Palacio walked through the door, and when he saw the men with the guns, he ran toward the bathroom.
“All I could [do] was to call for my husband to alert him. I didn’t get a chance to say the men had guns,” said Cuyoris.
At this point one of the gunmen fired, and then the other one fired repeatedly at Palacio, hitting him a total of six times. He was shot twice in the side of his head, and four times more, including in the chest and hands. During the gunfire, Palacio managed to run into the bathroom, where he continued to be shot.
After the gunman stopped shooting, Palacio lay still on the floor.
“They shot him and then they walked right out back,” said Cuyoris, explaining that when the two men were leaving her home, she wanted to attack one of them, who was standing beside her, but her young relative stopped her, reminding her that the men had guns.
The two men had parked their bicycles outside, and rode away after the shooting.
Cuyoris told us that this incident has taken a severe toll on her: “It’s very hard, it’s very hard, because he doesn’t trouble anybody. If you ask about Romel Palacio, he is an ex-BDF, and when he retired from the BDF, he was a sergeant, and now he runs taxi and he does real estate. Everybody is taking it hard, because you are not expecting anybody to walk all the way in your house and kill your husband in your bathroom.”
The family strongly believes that the shooting was a direct result of the fact that Romel’s son was an eyewitness to the murder of Mitchum Heredia in April 2006. Emory and Maurice Felix were charged in October 2007 with murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The conviction and sentence have since been overturned, and a retrial was ordered.
Palacio’s family told us that they believed that the court hearing on that murder case was to start again this week.
The thing is, Palacio’s son no longer resides in the city because of threats to his life.
Police responded immediately to the report and by the description given to them by Cuyoris, they were able to arrest one person and are seeking another. The detained person, we were told, was found hiding in a home around the same area, reportedly with a firearm in his possession.
Cuyoris told us that she wants justice for her husband, but that she is somewhat discouraged because of the unfairness of the justice system.
“God isn’t sleeping,” she said. “They will answer to God.”