Threats made to Lehigh Acres family date over a year before shooting

Yohani de Lazaro, the man accused of shooting two people to death in Lehigh Acres, made threats to the family he attacked dating back to April 2022.

One of the home’s occupants overpowered him with such force that he had to be hospitalized.

De Lazaro and the homeowner were in a legal battle for months and were due in court.

Melanie Musaurieta has had her world turned upside down in the last week.

“That’s my boyfriend Josue Vega Alvarez,” Musaurieta said. “That’s who I thought I was going to have a family with and who I thought I was going to get married to.”

Melanie will never be able to see the love of her life again.

“This is a pain that is never going to go away,” Musaurieta said.

And, she said, it’s all because of de Lazaro.

The threats started early, according to Musaurieta.

“They started about a year and a half, I would say, a year and a half ago,” Musaurieta said.

A message said “Josue will wish he were dead.”

The 22-year-old was the first person the family said de Lazaro shot in the back of the head when he arrived to this home on 11th Terrace on June 14.

They say de Lazaro also sent videos taken of the home where the murders took place. The family believes this is proof that de Lazaro was surveilling them and plotting violence well before that fateful day.

According to Musaurieta, her sister-in-law had gone to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office repeatedly.

“Yes, she went to the Lee County Sheriff’s Department twice,” Musaurieta said. “First, she actually was able to file paperwork and asked for a restraining order, and apparently, like the judge had denied it.”

Musaurieta said that the riff between de Lozaro and her boyfriend started over a missing title on a car that de Lozaro sold to him, and it coincided with the ongoing legal battle de Lozaro had with Josue Vega’s sister, Danae Alvarez, over who owned the home.

“They say that there’s … not enough evidence or there’s not enough background to that threat,” Musaurieta said.

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office said they have no record of Alvarez filing a complaint or report against de Lozaro.

But on June 14, outside of the home where the murders took place, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno was asked if the home on 11th Terrace had been an issue in the past.

“I don’t know the exact history in the past, but I did have some dialogue with one of my deputies who recalls this house as being an issue but unrelated to this domestic violence,” Marceno said.