A woman wanted for eight years in connection with the 2018 murder of a Virginia businessman inside his Lauderhill vacation condo has finally been captured, and she now faces state murder charges. Lauderhill police arrested 37-year-old Ingrid Tatiana Nunez Vargas on September 23 and transported her to the Broward County Main Jail, where she remained. She faces charges of first-degree felony murder with a firearm, armed robbery and armed burglary, with no bond allowed.
As Tamarac Talk reports, she is one of seven people named in a Broward County grand jury indictment tied to the killing of Martin Young, who was also known as Emerald Sr.
A Fatal Robbery Inside a Vacation Condo
Young, 44, lived full-time in Virginia, according to Tamarac Talk. He was staying at his family's vacation condominium at The Manors at Inverrary — a multi-building residential community at 4164 Inverrary Drive in Lauderhill, per NewsRadio WIOD — when he was killed on February 11, 2018.
Young was married to his wife, Nakeeha, for nearly 17 years, and the couple had two children at the time of his death, according to CBS Miami.
How the Night Unfolded
Surveillance footage showed Young meeting three women in downtown Fort Lauderdale and walking with them around 4 a.m., per the same reporting. Cameras later captured the group inside his building's elevator around 6:20 a.m. One of the women reportedly left the apartment and let two men into the building, according to Tamarac Talk's account of the indictment.
A confrontation followed inside the condominium, and Young was fatally shot. Surveillance cameras captured suspects fleeing down a stairwell afterward. Investigators believed the group had intended to rob Young and were also investigating whether the suspects had committed similar crimes elsewhere, per investigators cited in the reporting.
The Search That Spanned States
In May 2018, Lauderhill Police Chief Constance Stanley and Young's widow publicly appealed for help and offered a $10,000 reward, warning that suspects were altering their appearances and using false identities while on the run, according to CBS Miami. Police at the time noted several suspects had ties to Miami and Orlando.
Suspects were spotted in Texas, and one gave police a false name, according to NewsRadio WIOD. By July 2018, U.S. Marshals tracked down three suspects in California — Laura Daniela Perez-Lozano and Cristian David Carmona Quinonez in Fresno, and reggaeton artist Juan David Uribe Carvajal in Eureka — before extraditing Perez-Lozano and Carmona Quinonez to Broward County, where the two were ordered held without bond; Uribe had not yet been extradited, per WSVN 7News.
At that time, police continued seeking Homestead resident Alejandra Porras and an unidentified “woman in red” caught on surveillance video walking hand-in-hand with Young in Fort Lauderdale, WSVN 7News reported. A woman in a red dress was later seen going to the lobby and letting two masked men inside; afterward, two men and two women were seen fleeing down a stairwell.
The 2018 Indictment and Charges
The Broward County grand jury returned its indictment on August 2, 2018, naming Nunez Vargas and six others as participants in the robbery, burglary and killing, per the indictment cited by Tamarac Talk. The indictment reportedly did not identify Nunez Vargas as the person who fired the weapon, nor did it detail her individual actions during the crime.
Florida Statute § 782.04 provides that a felony participant commits second-degree murder when a person other than the participant causes the death, according to the Florida Senate. Prosecutors do not need to prove intent to kill if the death occurred during an enumerated felony such as armed robbery.
Tamarac Talk reports that the indictment named seven defendants and included a first-degree felony-murder charge.
With Nunez Vargas now in custody without bond, the eight-year case marks a significant break in an investigation that had spanned multiple states.
