{"id":361945,"date":"2026-08-03T22:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T22:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/361945\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T22:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T22:48:10","slug":"sheriffs-office-employee-killed-in-florida-murder-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/361945\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheriff&#8217;s Office employee killed in Florida murder-suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Palm Beach County Sheriff&#8217;s Office employee killed in Port St. Lucie murder-suicide<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1785797289_61_author_avatar.png\" width=\"48\" height=\"48\" alt=\"Malcolm Shields\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"0\">The Palm Beach County Sheriff&#8217;s Office announced on Monday, Aug. 3, that one of its employees was killed in a domestic violence incident in Port St. Lucie.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"1\">The sheriff\u2019s office said Communications Officer Elizabeth \u201cLiz\u201d Ortega was the victim of a murder-suicide at her residence in Port St. Lucie.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2cded4d8-30b5-475c-8af2-bafdcdbc37c6.jpg\" alt=\"Image no longer available\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" draggable=\"true\" class=\"css-fphibt\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Palm Beach County Sheriff\u2019s Office announced that Communications Officer Elizabeth Ortega was killed in a domestic violence incident at her Port St. Lucie home.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2cded4d8-30b5-475c-8af2-bafdcdbc37c6.jpg\" alt=\"Image no longer available\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"css-hr9vxw\"\/><\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"3\">The sheriff\u2019s office said Ortega began her emergency communications career with the Greenacres Police Department in November 2001. In February 2016, the Greenacres Police Department and its communications unit merged with the Palm Beach County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"4\">Your neighborhood: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbf.com\/local-news\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Local coverage from WPBF 25 News<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"6\">\u201cShe was a respected and cherished part of our PBSO family, known for her kindness, compassion, and a warm smile that could brighten any room,\u201d the sheriff\u2019s office said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"7\">The sheriff&#8217;s office added her son, Ralph Varela Jr., is a firefighter with Palm Beach County Fire Rescue.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"8\">Get the latest news updates with the WPBF 25 News app. You can download it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbf.com\/article\/get-wpbf-25-news-on-the-go\/999316\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"9\">The sheriff&#8217;s office said funeral arrangements will be announced.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"10\">According to the Port St. Lucie Police Department, Elizabeth Ortega, 50, was a victim of a murder-suicide by her partner Ralph Varela Sr., 50, on Saturday, Aug. 1.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"11\">If you or someone you know needs help, you can talk with the Suicide &amp; Crisis Lifeline by calling or sending a text message to 988, or you can <a href=\"https:\/\/988lifeline.org\/chat\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">chat online here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Palm Beach County Sheriff&#8217;s Office employee killed in Port St. Lucie murder-suicide WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. \u2014 The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4830,147264,147263,146996,675,124926,660,130530,128824,43759,147262,171,173,117335,172,6551,2631,6411,189],"class_list":["post-361945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-aug","tag-communications-officer-elizabeth","tag-greenacres-police-department","tag-liz","tag-local-coverage","tag-newsshe","tag-office","tag-office-employee","tag-ortega","tag-palm-beach-county-sheriff","tag-palm-beach-county-sheriffs-office-employee-killed-in-port-st-lucie-murder-suicide","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-murder-suicide","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-residence","tag-sheriff","tag-victim","tag-wpbf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}