Alberto Molinet’s case moved from a September 2023 shooting to a July 2026 conviction and a September life sentence.
MIAMI, Fla. — A homicide investigation that began before dawn on Sept. 10, 2023, reached its sentencing conclusion almost three years later when a Miami-Dade judge ordered Alberto Molinet to spend life in prison for the second-degree murder of his wife, Yulima Romero.
The case unfolded across three defining dates. Romero was killed inside the couple’s home on Sept. 10, 2023. A jury convicted Molinet on July 16, 2026, after hearing from the couple’s daughter and reviewing recordings, photographs, medical testimony and the firearm recovered from the scene. On Sept. 18, 2026, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Zachary James rejected a defense request for a 25-year sentence and imposed life imprisonment.
The first stage began shortly before 1 a.m. on the morning Romero died. Police said she and Molinet were arguing when he took a .357 revolver from an open safe. Investigators said he pointed the unloaded gun toward Romero and pulled the trigger. Although no round fired at that point, police said Romero became afraid and retreated into a bathroom while Molinet loaded the weapon.
Investigators said he then fired through the bathroom door. Prosecutors later told jurors that the violence continued after Molinet gained access to Romero. They said he struck her with the revolver, bit her and fired again, hitting her and causing her to fall. According to the State Attorney’s Office, Molinet told Romero, “You’re not leaving here,” before firing the fatal shot into her chest.
The couple’s 13-year-old daughter was there. She called 911 after the gunfire, placing her in the unusual position of being both a child confronted with her mother’s death and a direct eyewitness in the criminal investigation of her father. Police arrived, found Romero dead and seized the revolver. Molinet was arrested later that morning. Those first hours supplied the investigators with the scene evidence and witness account that would ultimately become the basis of a murder prosecution.
The daughter’s phone also preserved evidence from the immediate aftermath. In video later described in court reporting, she can be heard speaking to Molinet in Spanish, telling him he had killed her mother and saying she would never forgive him if Romero died. Prosecutors additionally said Molinet forced the girl to record images of Romero after the shooting. The recordings later became part of the evidence shown to jurors.
For nearly three years, the case remained unresolved by a jury verdict. Public reporting from the time of the arrest documented the police account, but a criminal charge and an arrest did not establish guilt. That determination came only after Molinet went to trial in 2026 and prosecutors were required to prove the second-degree murder charge beyond a reasonable doubt.
When the daughter entered the courtroom to testify, she was 16. The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office later said the defense attempted to blame her, while the prosecution relied on her account and other evidence to challenge that theory. Because publicly available coverage does not reproduce the defense case in full, the exact contours of its argument cannot responsibly be expanded beyond the descriptions provided by reports from the proceeding.
The state’s corroborating evidence included cellphone videos, crime-scene photographs and medical testimony. Prosecutors identified a medical examiner, Dr. Lew, who demonstrated how the recovered revolver corresponded with a patterned injury on Romero’s head. That evidence supported the allegation that Romero had been struck with the gun during the confrontation before the fatal shooting.
Jurors were also permitted to handle the revolver. The State Attorney’s Office said the weight of the firearm helped undermine the defense theory. That courtroom exercise allowed jurors to evaluate one physical feature of the weapon for themselves instead of relying entirely on verbal descriptions. The gun was considered alongside the daughter’s testimony, the phone recordings, the photographs and the medical examiner’s findings.
On July 16, the jury returned its verdict: guilty of second-degree murder. The decision was the first final adjudication of Molinet’s criminal responsibility for Romero’s death. It also shifted the case into a new phase. The factual question of guilt had been resolved, but James still had to determine whether Molinet would receive the lowest term permitted under the applicable sentencing framework or a sentence that could keep him incarcerated for life.
The sentencing hearing occurred Sept. 18. Defense attorneys asked James for 25 years, citing Molinet’s health and age. Reports said the lawyers pointed to diabetes and kidney disease among his medical conditions. The defense request acknowledged that a long prison term was required but asked the court not to select life imprisonment.
The prosecution returned to the facts of the killing. Prosecutors said the argument had started after Romero wanted a friend to visit and Molinet objected. They described Molinet as controlling. That account of the dispute supplied background for the confrontation, but the sentencing decision came after a trial in which jurors had already considered the broader evidentiary record and convicted him.
James rejected the request for a 25-year term and imposed life. The sentence meant that the case’s three-year progression — investigation, prosecution, trial and punishment — had reached its principal trial-court conclusion. Molinet was listed as 73 in reports published around the sentencing, though other later accounts described him as 74.
The chronology also shows how the daughter’s role changed as the case moved through the system. On the night of the killing, she was a 13-year-old calling 911 and recording events around her. By the time of trial, she was a 16-year-old witness whose account was challenged in court. Prosecutors responded by pointing jurors toward physical and recorded evidence they said supported what she told them.
Romero herself is less fully documented in the public accounts. Her age was not reported in the sources reviewed for this story. Most available coverage centers on the circumstances of her killing, the evidence presented against Molinet and the daughter who witnessed it. The absence of additional biographical information is a reason not to fill the record with assumptions about her life or family beyond what officials and court reporting established.
The State Attorney’s Office credited Felony Division Chief Tiffany Finger and Assistant State Attorney Jeremy Martin with presenting the case. Prosecutors publicly described the verdict as accountability for Romero and her daughter, while the court’s formal action was narrower and legally decisive: Molinet was convicted of second-degree murder and later sentenced within the range available to the judge.
No report reviewed as of Nov. 6, 2026, identified a later ruling that overturned the conviction or reduced the life sentence. The latest established status is therefore that Molinet remains convicted of Romero’s murder and sentenced to life in prison following the Sept. 18 hearing.
Author note: Last updated November 6, 2026.