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Woman Testifies About Hours Before Best Friend's Slaying

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By TODD LESKANIC | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 13, 2009

Updated: 03/13/2009 06:33 pm

DADE CITY - Farrah Hernandez called Raymond Veluz her best friend.

The two met while working at Westshore Pizza in March 2006 and became inseparable. It is hardly surprising, then, that Hernandez was one of the last people to see Veluz and Derek Pieper alive.

Today, Hernandez told the jury deciding the murder case of Luc Pierre-Charles Jr. about the final hours she spent with the teens on July 28, 2006. Her recollection was hazy, clouded by the Xanax, Klonopin, marijuana and alcohol she had consumed that night.

Still, it gave jurors an idea of what could have led to the shootings that left Pieper, 17, and Veluz, 18, dead in the middle of a dirt road in Trilby. Authorities contend Pierre-Charles and Tyree Jenkins shot the Wesley Chapel High students for drug-related reasons.

Pierre-Charles' trial entered its fifth day today and will continue Monday morning. The 21-year-old faces a possible death sentence if found guilty as charged. Jenkins, 23, will be tried separately and also could face death if convicted.

Hernandez, 20, testified that Veluz and Pieper picked her up at her house about midnight. The trio headed to a party in Veluz's four-door Mitsubishi Galant. Hernandez said they spent more than three hours at the party, where she used drugs and drank alcohol.

About 3 a.m., the three got back into Veluz's car and headed to the Pasco Woods apartment complex. Hernandez told the jury she got out of the car at the complex and saw a group of people she didn't know. She was met by Pierre-Charles' younger brother, Andre, who took her around the side of an apartment building and tried to "hook up" with her.

Hernandez testified that Veluz, Pieper and the Galant were gone when she returned to the front of the apartment building. When she asked the crowd of people where they had gone, nobody responded. Hernandez said she went inside one of the apartments and passed out.

"The next thing I remember is leaving an apartment and getting into a black SUV," she said.

Hernandez testified that Andre Pierre-Charles sat next to her in the backseat and placed a gun on the seat. She was told she was being taken home. Instead, Hernandez testified, she was taken to the Meadow Pointe subdivision and told to wait for Pieper and Veluz to come pick her up.

"Something didn't feel right," Hernandez said.

She said she walked to Veluz's house in the Northwood subdivision, arriving about 7:30 a.m. Veluz's mother, Maria Dejon, told Hernandez she hadn't seen her son and tried to call him on his cell phone. No one answered.

Hernandez then went to Pieper's house; his mother hadn't seen him either.

A woman on her way to work just before 6 a.m. found the teens' bodies in the middle of Harris Hill Road in Trilby. Another woman had discovered Veluz's car ablaze on River Road in Dade City.

Also today, prosecution witness and convicted felon Donavan Parker testified that Luc Pierre-Charles told him he shot the boys. Parker said Pierre-Charles made the statements while they were hanging out at an east Pasco bar in the weeks following the slayings.

Luc Pierre-Charles and Jenkins weren't charged in the slayings until last July.

Reporter Todd Leskanic can be reached at (727) 815-1084.

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