Gustavo Olivares-Rivas, 28, was found dead on November 8, 2006, inside a pickup truck parked along State Road 19 near the Ocala National Forest. His body and that of 20-year-old Javier Huerta were discovered bound with zip ties and riddled with multiple gunshot wounds; the brutal circumstances suggested a targeted execution tied to a stolen cache of cocaine.

Investigators linked the killings to Jose Manuel Martinez, a hitman for a Mexican drug cartel, after DNA from a cigarette butt inside a Mountain Dew can in the truck matched Martinez. Authorities say Martinez lured Huerta and Olivares-Rivas to a construction site under the pretense of resolving a drug debt and executed them as part of cartel retribution for a home-invasion robbery that resulted in stolen cocaine.

Martinez was arrested at the Arizona-Mexico border and later faced murder charges in multiple states; in Florida he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for the deaths of Huerta and Olivares-Rivas. Any readers who knew Gustavo or have information about the events leading to that night are asked to come forward.