Jozsef Piri, 49, is charged with second-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of Roberto Fonseca-Rivera, 44, a Boston truck driver for Katsiroubas Produce.
A former physician has been charged in connection with the road rage shooting death of a man in Vermont in 2019. Jozsef Piri, 49, will face a second-degree murder charge in connection with the shooting death of Roberto Fonseca-Rivera, 44, a Boston truck driver for Katsiroubas Produce.
On Nov. 1, 2019, Piri was returning to his West Simsbury residence from his family’s second residence in Londonderry, Vermont, as Fonseca-Rivera was driving south on Route 23 while on the phone with a friend, according to court documents obtained by The Hartford Courant.
Fonseca-Rivera had just made a delivery to a Vermont restaurant in his truck, and a friend that he was on the phone with at the time, Pedro Iroala, said that just before he was shot, Fonseca-Rivera told him that a truck in front of him was speeding up and slowing down.
According to court documents, Iroala told police he then heard “what appeared to be a deep inhale,” then silence followed by a loud noise “consistent with someone dropping a cellphone on the floor,” and he thought the call had just dropped until Fonseca-Rivera didn’t return from his delivery.
One of Fonseca-Rivera's coworkers called police when he didn’t return and they were able to track his whereabouts and found him dead of a gunshot wound to the head and neck in the southbound breakdown lane of Route 103 in Rockingham, Vermont.
Piri became a suspect after authorities checked video footage captured by cameras in the area, The Hartford Courant reported. Piri had driven to Londonderry the previous day to work on a long-running issue regarding the residence’s faulty well pump before the alleged shooting.
Police ended up finding a a magnetic gun holster on the driver’s side console of Piri’s 2018 Toyota Tundra and a gun that had the “same general rifling class characteristics” as the murder weapon. Police also found that Piri had searched news in the Rockingham area after the shooting and tried to wipe his search history and location data.
He is set to be extradited to Vermont from Florida, where he has been staying, and arraigned once he returns.
