In a quiet, rural area of Lexington, Kentucky, surrounded by horse farms, a dark tale unfolded on a cold January night. Twenty-three-year-old Alejandro Dominguez-Hernandez was found dead in the back seat of a four-door sedan parked on the side of Johnston Road on the evening of January 26, 2015. He had been shot multiple times. Police were called to the scene around 7:31 p.m., and he was officially pronounced dead at 8:25 p.m. Investigators were initially unsure how long his body had been in the car before being discovered.
In the days following the discovery, the Lexington police found themselves with few leads and no immediate suspects in what was the city's second homicide of the year. They appealed to the public for any information, hoping someone might have seen or heard something unusual in the remote area where Johnston Road runs between Bryan Station Road and Paris Pike. The car where Dominguez-Hernandez was found was impounded as part of the active and ongoing investigation.
A break in the case came when a cooperating witness, who was a Kentucky State Police undercover informant, came forward with crucial information. This informant had a recorded conversation with 20-year-old Felix Edil Rodriguez, in which Rodriguez admitted to the murder. He detailed a plan to purchase cocaine from Dominguez-Hernandez with the intention of killing him. According to the affidavit, Dominguez-Hernandez arrived on Johnston Road and got into the back of a car for the drug transaction. At that moment, Rodriguez ran out from behind a barn and fired numerous shots into the vehicle, ending Alejandro Dominguez-Hernandez's life.
Felix Edil Rivera-Rodrigues was arrested and charged with the murder of Alejandro Dominguez-Hernandez. During his trial, prosecutors presented audio recordings of Rivera-Rodrigues recounting the shooting to an undercover detective. The motive for the killing was revealed to be related to a drug deal and a territorial dispute over drug trafficking. Although his defense attorney argued there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime, a jury found Felix Edil Rivera-Rodrigues guilty of complicity to commit murder and four counts of drug trafficking. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder charge, with additional time for the trafficking counts to be served concurrently.
