{"id":499540,"date":"2026-02-06T17:32:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T21:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/uncategorized\/trial-against-nazario-mercedes-accused-of-multiple-homicides-in-ocoa-is-postponed\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T17:32:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T21:32:31","slug":"trial-against-nazario-mercedes-accused-of-multiple-homicides-in-ocoa-is-postponed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/dominican-news\/justice\/trial-against-nazario-mercedes-accused-of-multiple-homicides-in-ocoa-is-postponed\/","title":{"rendered":"Trial against Nazario Mercedes, accused of multiple homicides in Ocoa, is postponed."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>SAN JOS\u00c9 DE OCOA. \u2013<\/strong> The Collegiate Tribunal of the Court of First Instance of the Judicial District of Ocoa postponed the hearing of the trial on the merits against <strong>Nazario Mercedes<\/strong>, accused of causing the death of <strong>Darmelin de los Santos Ram\u00edrez<\/strong>, an event that occurred in the year <strong>2022<\/strong> in the municipality of <strong>Rancho Arriba<\/strong>, Ocoa province.<\/p>\n\n\nJudges <strong>Alfis Brandeli Castillo, Dayham E. Rodr\u00edguez and Loida Amador Senci\u00f3n<\/strong> suspended the hearing and set its continuation for <strong>Thursday, February 12<\/strong>, in order to continue hearing several witnesses proposed by the parties.\n\n\n<p><strong>You may be interested in:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/nacionales\/aplazan-audiencia-sobre-recurso-presentado-por-exdirector-de-senasa\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"597011\">Hearing on appeal filed by former SENASA director and other defendants postponed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\nNazario Mercedes, known in the community as \"the master\" or Miguel, was transferred from the Correction and Rehabilitation Center of Najayo to the Palace of Justice. Upon his arrival, relatives of the victim reacted with shouts of indignation and demands for justice.\n\nDuring the trial, the defendant was assisted by the <strong>National Public Defense Office<\/strong>, while the legal representation of the victim was in charge of lawyers from the <strong>Ministry of Women<\/strong>. The <strong>Public Prosecutor's Office<\/strong> was represented by prosecutor <strong>Ysidro Minyetty<\/strong> and aspiring auditor <strong>Adonys Zabala<\/strong>.\n\nIn the hearing, a sister of the victim testified, who stated that the accused left writings in a notebook in which he made derogatory references towards Darmelin de los Santos Ram\u00edrez, in addition to justifying the crime for alleged economic reasons. Likewise, prosecutor <strong>Jos\u00e9 Altagracia Castillo<\/strong> declared that the accused also left written evidence admitting his responsibility for the death of the young woman.\n\nThe medical examiner <strong>Franklin Garrido<\/strong>, who performed the body removal, reported that the autopsy determined that the victim died of <strong>strangulation<\/strong>, after having ended the relationship she had with the accused.\n\nNazario Mercedes faces charges under articles <strong>295, 302, 309-2, and 330 of the Dominican Penal Code<\/strong>. Furthermore, he is indicated in other jurisdictions for the alleged commission of similar acts, including homicides that occurred in <strong>1995, 2008, and 2014<\/strong>, as well as other cases still under investigation.\n\nIn <strong>November 2024<\/strong>, the defendant was arrested again while allegedly attempting to hide a body in the municipality of <strong>Villa Altagracia<\/strong>, which aggravated his legal situation.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SAN JOS\u00c9 DE OCOA. \u2013 The Collegiate Tribunal of the Court of First Instance of the Judicial District of Ocoa postponed the hearing of the trial on the merits against Nazario Mercedes, accused of causing the death of Darmelin de los Santos Ram\u00edrez, an event that occurred in the year 2022 in the municipality of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36952],"tags":[42400,43277],"class_list":{"0":"post-499540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-justice","7":"tag-nazario-mercedes","8":"tag-ocoa"},"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","dum_api":{"author_name":"Redacci\u00f3n De \u00daltimo Minuto","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cropped-logo-de-ultimo-minuto-96x96.png","categories_name":["Justice"],"featured_media_url":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}