{"id":5761,"date":"2025-10-16T00:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T00:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/5761\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T00:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T00:27:08","slug":"man-acquitted-of-murdering-co-worker-who-was-killed-by-orange-county-deputy-wftv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/5761\/","title":{"rendered":"Man acquitted of murdering co-worker who was killed by Orange County deputy \u2013 WFTV"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 An Orange County jury has acquitted a man of murder in a case where he never pulled the trigger<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The jury found Cristian Duran Contreras<\/a> not guilty of murder or manslaughter following Wednesday\u2019s closing arguments. He was, however, found guilty of trespassing.<\/p>\n

He will not serve further jail time for the trespassing count.<\/p>\n

The felony murder charge Contreras was facing stemmed from a home burglary on West Castle Street in February. He was targeting the home of Jose Luis Lopez. The two worked together at a roofing company.<\/p>\n

Investigators say after Contreras broke into Lopez\u2019s home, the two started fighting.<\/p>\n

Responding deputies say they saw Lopez holding Contreras in a headlock and thought he had a knife. That\u2019s when the two deputies shot at Lopez, not knowing he lived there.<\/p>\n

One deputy\u2019s bullet struck Lopez, killing hm.<\/p>\n

It was later determined that Lopez did not have a knife.<\/p>\n

Under Florida law, Contreras was charged with murder because someone died during the commission of a crime. Under this law, the defendant does not have to kill the victim to be charged.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here<\/a> to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

TOP STORIES FROM WFTV CHANNEL 9<\/p>\n

\u00a92025 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 An Orange County jury has acquitted a man of murder in a case where he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1060,2777,1308,1309,6308,1302,634,1304,6309,115,6313,1300,139,141,140,6311,6312,2789,6310,1045],"class_list":["post-5761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-channel_9","tag-channel_nine","tag-christian_duran_contreras","tag-contreras","tag-greg_warmth","tag-jose_luis_lopez","tag-local","tag-lopez","tag-martha_saalski","tag-news","tag-orange_cody","tag-orange_county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-pine_castle","tag-uber","tag-valerie","tag-valerie_boyd","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5761","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=5761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}