Kissimmee drug dealer to be sentenced in January on 2nd degree murder charge

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Kissimmee drug dealer to be sentenced in January on 2nd degree murder charge

County News

Friday, 30 November 2012 15:36

By Fallan Patterson

Staff Writer
A Kissimmee drug dealer was found guilty Tuesday of stabbing to death a man over drug money.
Shamiekka Ford, known on the streets as “Candy” or “Gucci,” was convicted in a jury trial of second-degree murder in the September 2011 death of Alberto Cristobal Rivera-Montanez.
She will be sentenced in January.
Ford, 33, stabbed Rivera-Montanez in the stomach with a folding pocketknife because he owed her $200 for crack cocaine, according to witness statements.
According to testimonies, Rivera-Montanez, 36, called out to his mother before collapsing in the middle of the highway.
Anonymous tips to Crimeline and the Kissimmee Police Department helped identify Ford and an eyewitness who gave the weapon to Ford weeks before the murder.
The incident occurred in the early morning hours of Sept. 30 outside the Apollo Inn, 670 E. Vine St., where the eyewitness told police Rivera-Montanez asked her to smoke crack cocaine with him.
The witness declined, warning him several people were looking for him because of the owed money. While the pair was talking, Ford and another male approached and confronted Rivera-Montanez about the money. According to police, Rivera-Montanez sold crack cocaine for Ford.
Rivera-Montanez told Ford he planned to repay her but lacked the money at the time. Ford allegedly said “You gonna pay me my money,” as she advanced toward Rivera-Montanez, jabbing a camouflage pocketknife into his lower left abdomen, according to court records.
Once stabbed, Rivera-Montanez fell onto the witness, cursed and said “Ma, she stabbed me.”
Ford and the witness then returned to the witness’ registered room at the Apollo Inn where an hour later they learned Rivera-Montanez had died.
The knife was recovered in a dried up ditch behind the motel Nov. 23 after the same tipster who anonymously reported Ford called Kissimmee police, the arrest warrant stated.
A motorist watched Rivera-Montanez collapse unresponsive around 5:30 a.m. Sept. 30 in the middle of Vine Street in front of the 192 Latino Buffet.
When police arrived, Rivera-Montanez was still alive. He was transported to Osceola Regional Medical Center where he was pronounced dead an hour later as a John Doe.
With no identification on him, police found an address book in his pocket that led them to his mother, Tammy Montanez, with whom he lived on Fountainhead Circle in Kissimmee, and booking photos from past criminal offenses. Police also were able to identify him based on his tattoos including artwork with the words “Ben Laden” and a plane crashing into the World Trade Center, police spokeswoman Stacie Miller said.
“Good heart”
Tammy Montanez is still heartbroken over the death of her only son. The Kissimmee grandmother, who also has three daughters, was grateful detectives never stopped looking for Rivera-Montanez’s killer despite his criminal record.
“He had problems for many years, his mental state. The drugs took over him,” Montanez said in a phone interview. “He had a really good heart. He never did any harm to anybody but himself.”
Montanez recognized her son’s drug addiction and tried to help him overcome it through rehabilitation programs, but the divorced father of two always went back to his old ways.
“It was so hard to get him off it,” she said.
In June 2011, Rivera-Montanez moved to New York for a change of scenery, hoping to get his life together. He planned to get his GED diploma and stay off the drugs, but missed his mother and came back to Kissimmee for a visit. He had been in town for two weeks when he was murdered.
Montanez wanted her son to be remembered as a good person who called everyone his friend, even if they were strangers. She recalled how Rivera-Montanez would bring homeless people he had just met on the street to her home in Miami for a meal.
Montanez had no remorse for her son’s killer.
“She caused a lot of pain. She changed my life,” Montanez said, adding she wanted to ask Ford if her son’s life and the possibility of spending the rest of her life in jail were worth the $200 Rivera-Montanez allegedly owed Ford. “It’s not going to bring my son back (but he) will be her last victim.”
Violent past
Ford was previously sentenced to eight years in prison for her part in a 1997-armed robbery in a Kissimmee apartment. She and a male accomplice robbed 10 people, taking upward of $330 in cash from the victims while holding guns to their heads.
Her male co-conspirator told the victims multiple times, according to the police report, “This is a robbery, don’t make it a homicide.”
Several of the victims recognized the pair as former students of Osceola High School, the report stated.