Jean Pierre Ojeda Salazar fled Florida after the killings but was captured the next day and later convicted on two murder counts.
TAMPA, Fla. — The white sedan was found abandoned after a mother and daughter were fatally attacked in Tampa, but investigators traced the suspected killer beyond Florida and arrested him at his brother’s Maryland home less than two days after the violence.
That rapid capture began a court process lasting more than two years. Jean Pierre Ojeda Salazar, 27, was eventually convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his girlfriend, Paula Cabrejo Molina, and her 14-year-old daughter, Mariana Cabrejo. A jury later declined to recommend the death penalty, resulting in life sentences. The final judgment connected a multistate fugitive investigation to an eyewitness account of what had happened inside the apartment before Ojeda Salazar left.
Tampa police first entered the case at 8:53 a.m. on Nov. 26, 2023. Officers were sent to the 14000 block of Riveredge Drive because a teenage girl had suffered serious injuries. Inside a residence at The Lodge at Hidden River apartments, they found Mariana and her 35-year-old mother with multiple stab wounds. Cabrejo Molina was pronounced dead there. Mariana was taken to a hospital but died. The scene gave police two homicide victims, a surviving witness and a suspect who was no longer present.
Detectives said the killings followed a verbal dispute between Cabrejo Molina and Ojeda Salazar. Afterward, he drove away in the white sedan and abandoned it, police said. Investigators used information gathered during the inquiry to determine that he had gone to Maryland. Members of the U.S. Marshals Capitol Area Fugitive Task Force arrested him on Nov. 27. He was initially held in a Maryland correctional facility while officials arranged his return to Hillsborough County to face charges.
The arrest resolved the immediate question of where Ojeda Salazar was, but it did not resolve what charges prosecutors could prove. Police initially announced one count of first-degree murder with a weapon, one count of second-degree murder with a weapon and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. As investigators gathered testimony, records and physical evidence, the prosecution developed a case alleging first-degree murder in both deaths. A jury ultimately accepted that position and convicted him of the two most serious homicide counts.
The surviving witness, Diana Calderon, became essential to explaining the difference between the first emergency summary and the later prosecution. Calderon lived in the apartment with Cabrejo Molina and her two children. She testified that she saw Ojeda Salazar attacking Cabrejo Molina while the woman was on a bed. Mariana entered the bedroom and tried to defend her mother. Ojeda Salazar then attacked Mariana, according to the state attorney’s office. Calderon left to seek help, carrying with her a direct account of the order in which the victims were injured.
Without that testimony, the scene could establish that two people had been stabbed but not necessarily how the violence moved from one victim to the other. Calderon’s account allowed prosecutors to argue that Mariana’s death resulted from a distinct act after she interrupted the assault on her mother. The prosecution said Cabrejo Molina was stabbed 18 times and Mariana four times. Those findings, combined with the eyewitness description, supported the state’s contention that both killings were intentional first-degree murders.
Investigators also recovered messages that offered context for the dispute. The communications showed that Cabrejo Molina wanted to leave Ojeda Salazar and that the relationship was breaking down, according to courtroom reporting. Prosecutors used the records to help explain the conflict preceding the attack. They did not have to ask jurors to infer the entire course of the relationship from the final argument. The messages documented strain before the killings, while Calderon’s testimony described the violence itself and police records documented Ojeda Salazar’s departure.
Ojeda Salazar’s lawyers did not present the case as one of mistaken identity. They told jurors that he was responsible for stabbing both victims but argued that the incident was a domestic dispute that had gone out of control, according to the state attorney’s office. He did not testify. That strategy placed emphasis on intent and degree rather than identity. The jury had to decide whether the evidence supported the state’s first-degree murder charges or a lesser understanding of the killings advanced by the defense.
Jurors returned guilty verdicts shortly before midnight on June 11, 2026. The decision completed the guilt phase but not the case because prosecutors had sought capital punishment. A separate penalty proceeding followed. The state again highlighted the circumstances of Mariana’s death, arguing that the teenager had witnessed the attack on her mother and was killed when she tried to intervene. The defense sought to persuade jurors that life imprisonment, rather than execution, was the appropriate punishment.
After about 90 minutes of deliberation, the jury declined to recommend death. The decision required the court to impose life sentences for the first-degree murder convictions. It was a different judgment from the guilty verdicts: jurors had concluded that Ojeda Salazar committed two first-degree murders but did not agree that the state should execute him. The outcome permanently removed him from the community while ending the prosecution’s effort to obtain a death sentence.
The no-bond order that kept Ojeda Salazar jailed before trial had been issued in December 2023. During that hearing, a family friend and an investigating detective testified. Hillsborough County Judge Catherine Catlin focused on the allegation that Mariana had been attacked while trying to protect her mother and ruled that Ojeda Salazar should not be released. The court was not deciding guilt at the time, but the order meant that the defendant remained detained as attorneys prepared a case involving two deaths, an eyewitness and interstate flight.
Tampa Police Chief Lee Bercaw said after the Maryland arrest that detectives would continue supporting the victims’ family and pursuing accountability. The statement came at the beginning of the prosecution, before the evidence was presented at trial. State Attorney Suzy Lopez issued a similar message after the verdict, saying the convictions held Ojeda Salazar accountable for killing Cabrejo Molina and murdering Mariana during her attempt to defend her mother. Together, the statements marked the opening and closing stages of the criminal case.
The legal timeline unfolded alongside a separate process of public mourning. Members of Tampa’s Colombian community gathered for a vigil about a month after the killings. Friends described the mother and daughter as deeply loved and said Cabrejo Molina had moved from Colombia to the United States seeking a better life for her children. The deaths also left Cabrejo Molina’s younger daughter, who was 4 at the time, without her mother and older sister. That loss remained outside the questions jurors could decide but shaped the consequences of the crime.
From the first police call to the sentencing, the case developed in distinct stages: emergency response, search, out-of-state arrest, return to Florida, pretrial detention, jury trial and penalty deliberations. Each stage answered a different question. Police found and captured the suspect. Prosecutors proved the charges. Jurors determined that death was not the proper sentence. The combined result is that Ojeda Salazar stands convicted of murdering both victims and will remain imprisoned for life.
The case is now beyond its trial phase. Any later court action would involve review of the convictions or sentences rather than a new investigation into the identity of the attacker. The abandoned car and Maryland arrest may have defined the earliest public reports, but the final record rests on what happened before the flight: Cabrejo Molina was attacked in her home, Mariana entered to defend her, and both were killed by the man who later tried to leave Florida.
Author note: Last updated July 15, 2026.