Hialeah Family Says Miami-Dade Cops Know Who Killed Their Son in 2009, but Never Charged Him

Raudel Sanchez was 21 years old when he was shot in the chest inside a bathroom at Club Mystique, a nightclub near Miami International Airport, in the early morning hours of August 17, 2009. Seventeen years later, no one has been arrested, and his family says that is not because police do not know who did it.

According to Sanchez's father, Raunel Sanchez, Miami-Dade Detective Juan Segovia told him in July that a career criminal named Raonel Valdez Valhuerdis was identified as the main suspect in his son's killing. As reported by the Miami Herald, the family believes federal prosecutors pressured homicide detectives to pause the investigation because a close associate of Valdez, Alfredo Kindelan Hernandez, was cooperating with federal authorities on a separate racketeering and migrant-smuggling case. Raunel Sanchez said police were allegedly told to stand down to protect that cooperating witness.

Miami-Dade police received a call about the shooting around 3:40 a.m. and arrived three minutes later, according to the police incident report cited by the Herald. Officers initially mistook the wound, with the report stating Sanchez was bleeding from the left side of his neck area — the report at one point mistakenly identified him as stabbed before it was determined he had been shot in the chest, per his death certificate. He was found dead outside Club Mystique, and witnesses told police they did not hear or see the shooting itself, saying loud music inside the crowded club obscured the gunshot.

A Family That Says Their Son Had No Connection to the Streets

Raudel Sanchez moved from Cuba to Miami-Dade when he was 10, according to the family's account, and attended middle schools in Miami Springs and Sweetwater before he did not graduate from high school. He worked at a cement factory. His mother, Vivian Texidor, said Raudel was not a criminal or involved in street activity, and the family has said he became a brother figure to his younger sister, Sabrina Sanchez, when she was 3 years old at the time of the murder — she is now 20.

Raunel Sanchez said the family simply wants to know who killed Raudel and why. A family friend reported overhearing Valdez say, in 2025, that he gave a man a “timbrazo” at Club Mystique — a detail the family has connected to the killing. Sources have said Valdez and Kindelan Hernandez were believed to be at Club Mystique on the night Raudel Sanchez was shot.

Who Is Raonel Valdez Valhuerdis

Valdez, now 48, immigrated to the United States in 2005 and built a long criminal record even before the Sanchez killing. In June 2008, Hialeah officers found 85 grams of methamphetamine taped inside the fuel tank lid of his car, according to The Tribune, though those drug charges were later dropped by state prosecutors.

Valdez's most notorious crime came in fall 2012, when he ambushed Bolivian gold courier George Villegas and stole 110 pounds of gold flakes worth $2.8 million in Coral Gables. As detailed by Fox News, Valdez was already wearing a court-ordered GPS ankle monitor from a prior charge when he carried out the heist. He was also involved in a Miramar marijuana grow-house invasion around the same time. In March 2013, a Miami-Dade judge granted him a $75,000 bond with a second monitor after his defense argued no weapon had been recovered — a ruling that let Valdez cut off the device and flee the country, drawing sharp criticism from investigators tracking South Florida crime rings.

A Manhunt Stretching From Mexico to Belize

Villegas, the sole eyewitness who identified Valdez at gunpoint during the robbery, suffered from renal failure and lived in fear of retaliation before dying of a heart attack in July 2013 while Valdez remained a fugitive, according to Miami New Times. Valdez evaded authorities across Mexico and the Bahamas before Belizean officials found him hiding in bushes near the Guatemala border in February 2014, carrying a Cuban passport, after an immigration officer recognized his name from an online wanted poster, per CBS News.

Valdez was extradited back to Miami in May 2014 to face grand theft and armed robbery charges. Despite the eyewitness's death, Florida prosecutors secured his conviction in 2018 for the gold heist and the Miramar home invasion, resulting in a state prison sentence, according to CoinWeek. Florida's Third District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's rulings against him between 2019 and 2021 as he pursued post-conviction relief from prison, records show.

The Informant Deal at the Center of the Family's Claims

Kindelan Hernandez, described as a close associate of Valdez, has cooperated with federal authorities since 2015, when he pleaded guilty to kidnapping a Cuban migrant for ransom in Mexico. In 2018, he agreed to provide information about a Cuban-American crime network and migrant-smuggling operations, pleading guilty to the Miramar home invasion and Coral Gables gold heist alongside Valdez. He was initially sentenced to 16-1/2 years, a term federal prosecutors later reduced to 10 years, citing his cooperation agreement.

Six members of the gang have been convicted on charges including kidnapping, extortion and torture, part of a federal racketeering case targeting migrant smuggling between Cuba, Mexico and South Florida. Miami New Times reported in 2013 that decentralized Cuban criminal rings in South Florida had expanded into grow houses, migrant smuggling, Medicaid fraud and armed robberies, illustrating the scale of the networks federal investigators were trying to dismantle. Kindelan Hernandez remains in federal custody; a habeas corpus petition he filed in June 2025 from FCI Oakdale in Louisiana was dismissed by a federal judge in November 2025, according to Justia Dockets.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami declined to comment on the family's allegation that prosecutors pressured local police to pause the homicide case. Detective Segovia reportedly told Raunel Sanchez that the killing was not linked to drugs or criminal activity tied to the Cuban-American network, and that he believed it was a one-off. Joaquin Perez, a criminal-defense lawyer representing a defendant in the federal racketeering case, said charging Raudel Sanchez's killer should have mattered more than protecting a cooperating witness. Perez emailed federal prosecutor Brian Dobbins and Segovia in August 2025 urging assistance with the homicide investigation.

What Comes Next

Segovia is now looking into pursuing charges in the case, according to Raunel Sanchez, though it remains unclear whether Miami-Dade prosecutors will formally move against Valdez before he is scheduled for release from federal prison in Coleman, Florida, in September 2030. For a family that has waited since 2009 for answers, that timeline offers little comfort. Raunel Sanchez said he and Texidor, who live in Hialeah, simply want to know who killed their son and why — a question that, for now, remains unresolved.