SILER CITY — A specialized team of law enforcement agents will retrieve Sergio “Yovani” Rodriguez Pereira — the primary suspect in a Siler City murder case who was found last month in Georgia — and return him to Chatham County to begin court proceedings within about two weeks, according to the managing assistant district attorney for Chatham and Orange counties.
Rodriguez has been wanted for almost six months since the killing of Ramon Hernandez in Siler City. Hernandez, 28, died Dec. 20 in the UNC-Chapel Hill Medical Center after he was shot several times in the torso. He’d been found earlier the same day on Waterford Street after authorities received reports of several gunshots.
A witness later identified Rodriguez — a Siler City resident and Hernandez’s brother-in-law — as the shooter. The Chatham County Sheriff’s Office charged Rodriguez, 24, with one count of first-degree murder and three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, but were unable to find him. On May 18, U.S. Marshals apprehended Rodriguez in Gwinnett County, Georgia, where he remains in custody without bond, according to Chatham County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Sara Pack.
Rodriguez will stand trial for his suspected crimes in Chatham County after an extradition team, in cooperation with the local district attorney’s office, returns him to local custody.
“What most people don’t know is we have a specialized team of state employees that work in Raleigh that do nothing but extradite people on these serious cases,” Kaley Taber, the managing assistant district attorney for Chatham and Orange Counties, told the News + Record.
The district attorney’s office typically presides over one or two extraditions per year, Taber said. Right now, though, she is coordinating four extradition efforts, including Rodriguez’s.
Upon confirmation from the Gwinnett County Jail that Rodriguez had been detained, Taber notified the extradition team — an independent agency within the N.C. Dept of Public Safety — to facilitate his recovery.
“So, North Carolina gets together a team that travels to Georgia to take custody of him,” Taber said, “and return the suspect safely here to North Carolina and place him in our confinement facility, which is the Chatham County Jail.”
Sometimes the extradition process is drawn out when arresting authorities or the arrested party demand a local court prove the suspect matches an out-of-state warrant. But Rodriguez relinquished his right to a hearing in Georgia, Taber said, “which allows the process to move quite a bit quicker.”
“He did sign a waiver down there in Georgia, which activated the process,” she said. “So we’re hoping to have him back here in North Carolina, and in our Chatham County Jail for his charges, I would say in two weeks.”
After his extradition is complete, Rodriguez will appear before a local judge to be advised of his charges.
“I would expect that to happen pretty rapidly once he’s back here in Chatham County,” Taber said. “And I would expect, in light of the serious nature of the charges, that a public defender will ultimately be representing him.”
Within 15 days of his first appearance before a judge, Rodriguez will attend a preliminary hearing for his case, the first “significant deadline in any felony criminal case,” Taber said.
“It’s a hearing to determine whether or not the person charged is probably the person who committed the offense,” she added. “It’s not proving beyond a reasonable doubt, but just, is it more likely than not this is the person that committed the offense?”
Taber declined to comment on what sentence she might expect in Rodriguez’s case if he’s found guilty, citing fear of prejudicing the result. But conviction of first degree murder in North Carolina is punishable by life in prison without parole or the death penalty.
First degree murder is a Class A felony, commonly known as premeditated murder. A conviction usually requires the prosecution to prove malicious intent. Besides asserting actual innocence, a defending attorney could try to reduce Rodriguez’s charges by arguing the killing was committed in self defense, in the heat of passion, due to insanity or after mistaking the victim for someone else.
Those who knew Hernandez remembered him as “always a happy-go-lucky person.” Paul Cuadros, an associate professor of journalism at UNC who knew Hernandez for many years, works as the head soccer coach at Jordan-Matthews. He met Hernandez when the latter was a student and star on the soccer team.
“Ramon was a class act all the way,” Cuadros said. “He was a decent and good young man who was developing his leadership skills and was dedicated to helping people in the community.”
Hernandez assisted Cuadros as a coach and had begun work as a social worker with Chatham County schools, helping the next generation of young people — especially those in the Hispanic community — to achieve success.
“This was a big loss for the community …” Cuadros said. “It’s going to be felt by lots of people in our community; we are all shocked and dismayed by the tragic loss of Ramon. I think that’s the general feeling right now — it’s one of shock.”
Reporter D. Lars Dolder can be reached at dldolder@chathamnr.com and on Twitter @dldolder.