A Miami handyman was sentenced to death on Friday for killing a La Carreta waitress with a rice cooker power cord in 2005.<\/p>\n
Rafael Andres, 61, was convicted in 2014 and later sentenced to death\u2014before he was granted a new sentencing trial\u2014for the murder of Ivette Fari\u00f1as.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the time, prosecutors stated that Andr\u00e9s stabbed Fari\u00f1as, 31, multiple times in the chest, struck her in the face and head, and strangled her with the power cord of a rice cooker before leaving her apartment engulfed in flames.<\/p>\n
When firefighters responded to the blaze at the home located at 1100 Southwest 74th Avenue, they discovered Fari\u00f1as’s body, which had also been burned.<\/p>\n
Andres was a handyman who had been hired by Fari\u00f1as. Prosecutors said he stole her ATM card and fled the scene before being captured in March 2006.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Andres was also previously convicted of another brutal murder in 1987, when he beat and stabbed Linda Azc\u00e1rreta to death. He served a year and a half in prison for that case.<\/p>\n
Andres’s Spencer hearing began in April, which is an opportunity for the defendant’s attorneys to try and convince a judge to go against a jury’s death recommendation and choose life in prison as a punishment instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Death row again?<\/p>\n
Andres, who was originally sentenced to death, was granted a new sentencing trial by the Florida Supreme Court after the U.S Supreme Court ruled the state’s law at the time was unconstitutional in 2016.<\/p>\n
In November of 2025, a new Miami-Dade jury reviewed all of the evidence regarding the waitress’s murder and recommended in a 9-3 vote that Andres should be sentenced to die.<\/p>\n
Jurors found the crime was heinous, atrocious, or cruel but did not believe it was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner.<\/p>\n
Now, Judge Zachary James has followed the jury’s recommendation and sentenced him to death again.<\/p>\n