Scientist Omar Padilla Vélez dies after being shot in San Juan ambush, fiancé says

Omar Padilla Vélez died on Jan. 22, three weeks after he was shot during an early morning drive, his fiancé Kelly Crispin says, according to several news outlets. The couple had been visiting family in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Crispin told reporters. Crispin said the attack occurred in the early hours of Jan.

3 as the pair — with a friend in the backseat — were returning to Vélez's family home after dinner. The car turned onto a side street the couple thought led to the highway and was then surrounded, she told The Philadelphia Inquirer, NBC Philadelphia and FOX 29. About a dozen men carrying AR-15–style rifles surrounded the vehicle, Crispin said.

When Padilla Vélez tried to drive away, the attackers began shooting. As bullets riddled the car, glass exploded and Crispin felt pain in her shoulder; she heard Padilla Vélez say he'd been shot. He was shot in the head and died three weeks later, NBC Philadelphia reported. Crispin said she heard some attackers shout at others to stop shooting because there was a woman in the car, giving her the impression they may have made a mistake.

She said the men searched her purse, took nothing and returned her phone, and that one attacker later directed them on how to get out of the neighborhood while she tended to the victim. No person of interest has been named and no arrests had been made nearly a month after the shooting, the outlets reported.

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