Photo: Heyzel Obando/ Facebook
More than three years after his wife’s suspicious death, Tony Joiner — who played safety for the University of Florida Gators in the mid-2000s on the same team asAaron Hernandez— was arrested Saturday, charged with her second-degree murder, PEOPLE confirms.
In a statement, police in Fort Myers announced the 33-year-old former college football star remains in custody following his arrest. In the release, police said they worked closely with theOxygen seriesCold Justice, which examines unsolved homicides that have lingered for years.
According to investigators, Joiner’s 26-year-old wife, Heyzel Obando, was found dead in their Fort Myers apartment on Valentine’s Day in 2016.
Police did disclose at the time they believed Obando died under suspicious circumstances. Two months after her death, medical examiners determined murder was the cause.
Joiner won a national championship with the Gators in 2006.
In 2007, Joiner was part of the team that included quarterback Tim Tebow and Hernandez, who went on to play professionally for the New England Patriots.
Tony Joiner.Fort Meyers Police
That team, under coach Urban Meyer, finished the season with a record of 9–4.
Hernandez hanged himselfwith a bed sheet in prison 2017, five days afterhe was acquitted of double murder chargesin the deaths of two men outside a Boston nightclub in 2012. At the time, he was serving a life sentence forthe 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd, his fiancée’s sister’s boyfriend. He was not eligible for parole.
The News-Pressspoke to Obando’s mother, Isabel Martinez, over the weekend. Martinez said police informed her Joiner’s arrest was imminent on Friday.
Martinez said she’s torn with emotion over the arrest.
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“As a mother, I understand the pain his mother is going through,” Martinez said, “but as a mother, no one is going to take my pain away. Now that he is arrested, I hope he feels the weight of the law.”
The daughters of Obando and Joiner, now three and six, are in Martinez’s custody, after winning permanent guardianship of them in 2017.
“They are getting big,” Martinez said. “They are going to school.”
Joiner has not entered a plea to the charges against him and attorney information for him was not immediately available.
source: people.com
