Federal prosecutors last week signaled their intent to seek the death penalty for Rosniel Diaz-Bautista, who is being charged with the 2024 killing of Indierra Morales in Frederiksted.
According to a U.S. District Court filing last week, prosecutors said they believe the death penalty is justified because Diaz-Bautista intentionally killed Morales and created “a grave risk of death to one or more persons in addition to the victim of the offense.” Further, Diaz-Bautista “poses a patent risk of future dangerousness to the lives and safety of others, as demonstrated by committing the current offense while on pretrial release for attempted murder and also two pending local firearm charges in Superior Court.”
Diaz-Bautista was previously arrested along with another man, Angel Perez, in September 2022, several months after police were dispatched to Luis Hospital, where two gunshot victims were being treated. Diaz-Bautista and Perez were both charged with attempted murder and a litany of other offenses. Morales and another woman, Reanna Thompson, were charged with being accessories after the fact and concealing a felony.
Two years later, the island’s ShotSpotter system alerted law enforcement to gunfire shortly after midnight on King Street in Frederiksted, where they found a woman with multiple gunshot wounds in the driver’s seat of a car. The woman, later identified as Morales, succumbed to her injuries. Diaz-Bautista was arrested within hours.
According to a charging document, law enforcement reviewed security camera footage, which showed Diaz-Bautista approach the car before firing it into the driver’s side and leaving the scene. He was charged locally with first-degree murder and, later, with federal charges of using a firearm during a crime of violence resulting in death.
In light of the capital charges, federal public defender Matthew Campbell asked the court Thursday to transfer Diaz-Bautista from prison in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, back to St. Croix in order to provide effective counsel. U.S. Magistrate Judge Emile Henderson III set a hearing for next Friday to consider the move.
