A Sunday argument between two acquaintances in New Port Richey ended with one man dead and police now hunting for the suspect accused of stabbing him once in the chest with a large machete-style knife. Ivan Aguilera Torres, 44, is wanted on an active warrant for second-degree murder, and as of now he remains at large.
According to the Tampa Bay 28 report, the New Port Richey Police Department says the two men involved knew each other before the confrontation. What began as a verbal disturbance escalated into a physical altercation, and at some point during that fight, Torres allegedly used the machete-style blade to stab the victim once in the chest. The victim was later pronounced dead from his stabbing injuries, per NPRPD.
Investigators have not released the victim's identity, and it remains unclear exactly where in the city the confrontation happened or whether the machete used in the attack has been recovered. It is also not publicly known whether Torres has fled New Port Richey's city limits into the surrounding unincorporated stretches of Pasco County or beyond, leaving a key piece of the manhunt still unresolved.
A Small Department Covering a Dense Corner of Pasco County
The search is being run by a department that polices a compact stretch of west-central Florida. New Port Richey Police Department operates out of headquarters at 6739 Adams Street with 46 sworn officers and 26 civilian personnel covering just five square miles and roughly 18,000 residents, according to the City of New Port Richey. That small municipal footprint sits at the center of a much larger unincorporated Pasco County population of about 240,000, meaning any suspect who slips past city limits quickly becomes a much broader regional search.
The department is led by Chief Robert Kochen, who took over in January 2023 after 32 years with the Tarpon Springs Police Department. Under his leadership, NPRPD earned its first-ever official accreditation from the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation this past February, per the city's own records.
What Second-Degree Murder Charges Carry Under Florida Law
Torres is wanted on a charge of second-degree murder, a designation defined under Florida Statute § 782.04(2) as an unlawful killing carried out through an act imminently dangerous to another that evinces a depraved mind without any premeditated design, according to attorney Richard Hornsby. It is classified as a first-degree felony, carrying a maximum penalty of life in prison or life on probation plus a $10,000 fine, with a mandatory minimum sentence of 16.75 years under the state's Criminal Punishment Code.
Because the alleged killing involved a deadly weapon, the offense is also elevated to a Level 10 severity ranking under Florida Statute § 775.087, which restricts a judge's ability to grant a downward sentencing departure absent proven statutory mitigating factors, per the same Hornsby analysis. Separately, Florida's weapons statutes under Chapter 790 generally allow adults to openly carry large fixed-blade tools like machetes, though blades with edges longer than four inches are legally classified as deadly weapons rather than ordinary pocketknives, according to Iron Ethos.
A City With a History of Rare but Violent Knife Attacks
Fatal knife violence is uncommon in New Port Richey, but this is not the city's first. Florida Department of Law Enforcement Uniform Crime Reporting data recorded just one homicide in the city in 2021, alongside 16 robberies and 87 aggravated assaults, for a total of 525 index crime offenses that year. More recent FBI data compiled through this August rates the city's overall violent crime rate at 43 percent below the national average, putting an individual's annual risk of violent crime victimization there at roughly 1 in 461, according to DoorProfit.
Still, the city has seen bladed-weapon violence turn deadly before. In January 1998, a hotel owner was fatally stabbed inside his business on US Highway 19, a cold case that prompted a sustained multi-year investigation and a composite sketch release from Crime Stoppers of Tampa Bay. And in March 2006, a knife attack in New Port Richey left a 17-year-old boy dead and a woman injured, triggering a multi-agency SWAT operation and domestic violence warrant arrests across western Pasco County, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
How to Report Information on Torres' Whereabouts
Police are asking anyone with information about Torres' whereabouts to contact the New Port Richey Police Department. Pasco County law enforcement agencies also maintain a centralized non-emergency dispatch line at (727) 847-8102 for residents to report tips outside of 911 emergencies, a resource used during other recent active searches in the area.
This is not the only recent case that has drawn New Port Richey police into public search efforts this year. Hoodline has previously covered an overnight disappearance in the city, and last August reported on a separate felony assault case in New Port Richey. For now, the identity of the victim in Sunday's stabbing has not been released, and Torres remains wanted as the investigation continues.
