Jurors considered cellphone recordings, medical testimony and the revolver before Alberto Molinet received a life sentence for killing Yulima Romero.
MIAMI, Fla. — A revolver placed in jurors’ hands, cellphone recordings made inside a family home and medical testimony about a head injury formed key parts of the evidence that led to Alberto Molinet’s second-degree murder conviction and, two months later, a life sentence for killing his wife.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office said the prosecution used those pieces of evidence to corroborate the testimony of Molinet’s daughter, who was 13 when she witnessed the September 2023 killing of her mother, Yulima Romero. The girl was 16 by the time she testified at Molinet’s July 2026 trial. Jurors convicted him July 16, and Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Zachary James sentenced him to life in prison Sept. 18.
One of the prosecution’s most tangible exhibits was the .357 revolver recovered after Romero’s death. Jurors were allowed to handle the firearm during the trial. Prosecutors later said its weight helped demonstrate why they believed the defense theory did not fit the physical evidence. The State Attorney’s Office described the courtroom demonstration as one part of a methodical case intended to show jurors how the gun itself related to the injuries and events described by witnesses.
The medical evidence provided another link. A medical examiner identified by prosecutors as Dr. Lew testified about a patterned injury found on Romero’s head. According to the State Attorney’s Office, the examiner demonstrated how the revolver matched that injury. The testimony supported prosecutors’ allegation that Molinet struck Romero with the handgun during the confrontation, an act described by investigators before the case ever reached trial.
Cellphone evidence gave jurors another source of information. Prosecutors showed videos from the daughter’s phone, some of which preserved the aftermath of the shooting. In a recording described by NBC South Florida and other reports, the girl can be heard speaking to her father in Spanish, accusing him of killing her mother and saying she would never forgive him if Romero died. Prosecutors also said Molinet forced the girl to take photographs and video after the shooting.
The evidence mattered because the defense challenged the state’s account and, according to prosecutors, attempted to blame the child. The full defense presentation is not available in the public reports reviewed for this story, so it would be inappropriate to reconstruct arguments that were not documented. What is clear from the prosecution’s public account is that the state treated corroboration as essential, placing the daughter’s testimony alongside recordings, photographs, medical findings and the firearm itself.
Those exhibits were intended to support a sequence that investigators said began shortly before 1 a.m. on Sept. 10, 2023. Police said Molinet and Romero were arguing when he removed the revolver from an open safe in the living room. Investigators said the weapon initially was unloaded when Molinet pointed it toward Romero and pulled the trigger. Romero then became afraid and hid in a bathroom, according to the police report described in news coverage.
Police said Molinet loaded the gun after Romero went into the bathroom and fired through the door. Prosecutors said the confrontation then moved into the bathroom, where Molinet struck Romero with the revolver and bit her. He fired another round that hit her and caused her to fall, according to the state. Prosecutors said he told Romero, “You’re not leaving here,” before firing the fatal shot into her chest.
The couple’s daughter witnessed the violence and called 911 after the shots were fired. Responding officers found Romero dead at the scene and recovered the weapon. Molinet was arrested later that morning. The early police investigation established the physical pieces that would remain important almost three years later: the gun, the scene, Romero’s injuries and the child’s account of what occurred.
The case did not go to a jury until July 2026. By then, prosecutors had to translate a chaotic event inside a home into a courtroom presentation that could be tested under the rules of evidence. Their case asked jurors to consider whether the physical evidence lined up with the eyewitness account. The medical examiner’s demonstration, the videos and the gun itself became especially important because each could be assessed separately from the teenager’s testimony.
On July 16, jurors found Molinet guilty of one count of second-degree murder. The conviction resolved the central factual dispute at trial in the prosecution’s favor. The verdict did not, however, decide the precise sentence. That issue returned to James in September, when defense attorneys argued that Molinet should receive a 25-year term rather than spend the rest of his life in prison.
The defense cited Molinet’s age and health, including reported diabetes and kidney disease. His attorneys asked for the 25-year mandatory minimum. Prosecutors focused on the severity and sequence of the violence. Reporting from the hearing also supplied more information about what led to the argument: Prosecutors said Romero wanted a friend to come over and Molinet opposed the visit, conduct the state characterized as controlling.
James chose life imprisonment. The sentence was imposed Sept. 18, about three years after Romero’s death and roughly two months after the verdict. Molinet was widely reported as 73 at sentencing, although some subsequent accounts listed his age as 74. The age discrepancy does not affect the established court outcomes: a second-degree murder conviction and a life sentence.
The prosecution’s emphasis on corroboration helps explain why the case was not publicly framed only as a conflict between the daughter’s account and the defense. The state had a recording made close in time to the killing, a firearm recovered from the scene, medical findings and photographs. Prosecutors argued that those independent pieces pointed in the same direction as the teenager’s testimony.
The use of the revolver as a demonstrative exhibit was particularly notable. Rather than merely hearing descriptions of the gun, jurors physically handled it. Prosecutors said that experience helped them evaluate claims about how the weapon could have been used. The medical examiner’s testimony then connected its form to Romero’s head injury, while the daughter’s recordings and testimony addressed the sequence around the gunfire.
That does not mean every detail of the prosecution’s presentation can be treated as an independently established fact outside the verdict. Statements about what motivated Molinet, how the defense framed particular evidence and why jurors found one exhibit persuasive remain tied to the arguments made in court. The jury’s verdict establishes that it found the evidence sufficient to convict him of second-degree murder.
The public record reviewed for this story does not report Romero’s age and does not include complete transcripts of the trial or sentencing hearing. It does establish that prosecutors Tiffany Finger and Jeremy Martin presented the case before James, that the daughter testified at age 16 and that the state relied on multiple forms of corroborating evidence before jurors reached their verdict.
For James, the final decision was not whether Molinet would receive a lengthy prison term, but whether the circumstances justified stopping at 25 years. The judge chose the harsher option, making the sentencing hearing the last major trial-court judgment in a case already settled by the jury on guilt. Molinet’s life term remains the controlling sentence in the public record reviewed for this story.
Author note: Last updated November 6, 2026.