Doctor charged in Vermont road rage murder said he was having a ‘s–t day’: police
A doctor charged with fatally shooting a Vermont truck driver through his window allegedly blamed the road rage incident on him having a “s–t day.”
Jozsef Piri, 49, was arrested in Naples, Florida, last week over the 2019 shooting death of 44-year-old Roberto Fonseca-Rivera.
Piri is awaiting extradition to Vermont, where he will face a second-degree murder charge.
Fonseca-Rivera’s body was found slumped over in the produce truck he was driving on Route 103 in Rockingham after being shot in the head and neck on Nov. 1, 2019, police said.
The victim had been on the phone to a friend when he started complaining about a car in front of his vehicle driving erratically, according to court documents obtained this week by the Hartford Courant.
The friend told cops he heard Fonseca-Rivera take a “deep inhale” and then a loud noise that sounded like he’d dropped his cellphone on the floor.
Police said they’d determined over the course of their two-year investigation that Piri was driving in front of Fonseca-Rivera in the moments before the shooting.
They identified Piri via surveillance footage and interviewed him the day after the shooting.
Piri allegedly told them he hadn’t slept well the night before the incident and was frustrated by the costs associated with his home renovation.
The doctor, who didn’t admit to the shooting in that interview, said he had been having a “s–t day,” according to the court documents.
During subsequent searches, police found a magnetic gun holster on the driver’s door of Piri’s car and a gun in his home that was consistent with the one that killed Fonseca-Rivera.
Investigators also went through Piri’s phone and found one of his Google searches was for a news article that listed the truck driver’s death as “suspicious,” according to the court documents.
His search history in the days after the shooting had allegedly been deleted.
At the time of the deadly road rage incident, Piri was living in Connecticut and was affiliated with the Hartford Hospital.
Before his arrest, he had been a practicing doctor at Physician’s Regional in Tampa.
