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Violence shocks community
The attempted murder of one man last week and the killing of another shocked most people in Clarke County, but Jim Edwards wasn't surprised.
Edwards, who lives on Nelson Road where the incident occurred, was driving from his house east of White Post to meet Sheriff Anthony Roper for a round of golf when he saw cars at the end of his neighbor's driveway.
From occasional encounters, Edwards was familiar with murder suspect Jose Cuevas-Gonzalez. Edwards said he assumed Cuevas-Gonzalez had hit someone while leaving the driveway because he tended not to look both ways.
“My first thought was, 'Jose finally killed somebody,'” said Edwards, a retiree.
Edwards pulled over to investigate and his initial thought was incorrect: no one had been hit by Cuevas-Gonzalez's car, but two men had been struck by his bullets.
Walking up, Edwards saw the Cadillac Escalade sitting with the driver's side door open and the body of the victim, who was later identified as Juan Francisco-Cortez, exposed. By that time the other victim, later identified as Daniel Guerrero-Lopez, had been transported to an unidentified Washington, D.C. hospital.
Edwards said the victim was “not particularly well-dressed. [He wore] khaki slacks and a sports shirt.”
Edwards said generally once a month he noticed Cuevas-Gonzalez speaking with people who “were not dressed in work clothes,” and he assumed they were people Cuevas-Gonzalez knew.
Edwards described Cuevas-Gonzalez as “a hard-worker.” However, he “never saw the man smile” and when Edwards would wave at him, Cuevas-Gonzalez never waved back.
Upon viewing the body, it appeared to Edwards that Cuevas-Gonzalez had approached the victim from the side of the vehicle and the victim “threw up his arm and got shot in the side.” That close of an impact, he said, would “blow out a heart and lungs.”
Edwards believed the weapon was “a 9-millimeter short that uses a small bullet with not a lot of powder behind it.”
Edwards did not speculate about what could have happened at the end of the driveway. He said he didn't know whether the victims were entering or exiting, but that “something went very sour on the driveway.”
He suspects, however, that the victims were “coyotes and they're coming to collect ... You don't shoot two people unless you already have a gun and were expecting a problem.”
Nelson Road is surrounded by land owned by Blandy Experimental Farm and Historic Long Branch Plantation.
Executive Director at Long Branch, Mary Rodriguez said she didn't hear of the shootings until Sheriff Roper called to say the road to the plantation would be closed and they were redirecting traffic.
“We're very sorry that this happened,” Rodriguez said.
Contact the writer at hhager@timespapers.com.
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