A South Florida man has been charged with first-degree murder in the 2024 killing of nurse and mother of two Linda Campitelli, after investigators said messages, surveillance footage and forensic evidence tied him to a secret meeting that ended with her body left near a roadside in Palm Beach County.
Rene J. Perez, 38, was arrested March 10 in Miami and brought to Palm Beach County to face charges of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon and tampering with physical evidence. The arrest came more than 16 months after Campitelli, 35, was found dead outside her Chevrolet Tahoe in the 6100 block of Lyons Road. The case matters now because it turns what had long looked like a stalled roadside homicide into a prosecution built on a hidden relationship, a planned birthday meeting and a trail of digital and physical evidence that detectives say contradicts Perez’s original account.
According to a probable cause affidavit described by local Florida media, Campitelli and Perez had been involved in a romantic relationship for about two years while both were married. Investigators said the two communicated almost daily on WhatsApp and had arranged to meet on Oct. 28, 2024, for a belated birthday celebration for Campitelli. The day before, she sent him a message saying she loved him and felt nervous because he had never planned anything like it before. That detail, small on its own, later became one of the most haunting parts of the public record because it placed Campitelli on the edge of an encounter she seemed both excited about and uneasy over. Detectives now say that meeting, not a random roadside event, was the center of the crime.
Surveillance footage and phone evidence, according to the affidavit, placed Campitelli’s Tahoe at the Retina Group of Florida building in Wellington on the night she died. Perez had previously worked there, and investigators described the site as isolated enough to support their theory that the attack happened there before the body was moved. A photo recovered from Campitelli’s phone, authorities said, showed the back of the Tahoe set up for the birthday meeting, with a “Happy Birthday” blanket, Ultrasorb medical sheets and the rear seats laid flat. Detectives said those medical sheets matched the type used at Delray Medical Center, where Perez worked. Investigators also said Campitelli’s Apple Watch was found near the center console with blood on both sides, and DNA testing confirmed that blood found in the vehicle and at the scene belonged to Campitelli. That evidence, they say, points to violence inside or around the SUV before her body was left on Lyons Road.
When deputies responded that night, they found Campitelli about 50 feet from the Tahoe. The vehicle was still running, and the front driver’s-side tire was flat, a detail investigators said suggested it had been deliberately disabled. The affidavit described severe injuries: blunt force trauma to the head and torso, a skull fracture, rib fractures, bleeding inside the skull and bruising to the upper back and neck. Detectives also cited postmortem marks consistent with a body being dragged. The medical examiner later ruled the death a homicide, and by November 2024 the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said publicly that the case was no longer being treated as an unexplained death. Even then, though, the investigation did not move quickly into an arrest. It took months of search warrants, witness interviews and analysis of cell phone data before detectives said they could name a suspect.
Perez’s alleged actions after the killing became another important part of the charging narrative. Investigators said surveillance cameras later captured him going to Delray Medical Center and throwing something away in a trash container near the doctor’s entrance before driving home. That sequence formed part of the basis for the tampering count. Detectives also said Perez told them he had canceled the planned meeting with Campitelli, but they found no WhatsApp or text messages to support that explanation. Instead, according to the affidavit, the digital record continued to point toward a real meeting that night. Authorities also said Perez had purchased and used a secret prepaid phone, a detail prosecutors are likely to use to suggest concealment rather than coincidence. Taken together, those points gave investigators a theory that the killing was not impulsive roadside violence by a stranger, but a private meeting that turned fatal and was then covered up.
The human side of the case has remained close to the surface since Campitelli’s death. Family members and friends described her in earlier interviews as kind, admired and deeply devoted to the two young daughters she left behind. Her mother, Edina Russo, told WPTV after the arrest that the family felt a mix of grief and closure and that she intended to follow the case through court. Public reaction has also been sharpened by the hidden structure of the relationship described in the affidavit. Detectives say the killing grew out of a yearslong affair between two married co-workers, a fact that gave the case a deeply personal center even before an arrest was made. But the filing still leaves major gaps. It does not publicly explain a motive beyond the circumstances of the meeting itself. It does not describe a confession. And it does not answer the question that will likely matter most at trial: why prosecutors believe Perez chose to kill Campitelli during what was presented as a birthday surprise.
The legal case is now at an early but serious stage. Perez made his first court appearance March 11 in Palm Beach County, where a judge held him without bond, according to local reports. That ruling means the court treated the charges and the affidavit as strong enough to keep him jailed while the case moves forward. As of Friday, public reporting had not laid out a detailed defense response to the allegations. The prosecution, meanwhile, appears likely to lean heavily on the timeline built from messages, surveillance footage, blood evidence and the setup inside the Tahoe. That is the kind of case that does not depend on one dramatic eyewitness or one decisive statement. Instead, it depends on many pieces fitting together tightly enough to persuade a jury that the meeting was arranged, the attack occurred at the Wellington site, the body was moved, and the suspect then tried to hide what happened.
The length of the investigation also says something about the difficulty of proving a homicide when the scene is incomplete and the early facts point in several directions at once. Campitelli’s body was found on a road, not in a home or workplace. The most important encounter of the night appears to have taken place away from public view. And the relationship at the center of the case was one both parties had reason to keep private. Investigators said they authored more than 50 search warrants and reviewed hundreds of hours of cell phone data before reaching this arrest. That long grind gave the case a second story beyond the killing itself: the persistence of detectives trying to turn a confusing death scene into a charge that could survive in court.
The image left behind by the affidavit is stark and unsettling: a nurse leaving home for what she appears to have believed was a private birthday meeting, a vehicle prepared with a blanket and medical sheets, and then a body found beside a still-running SUV on a dark Palm Beach County road. The arrest does not resolve everything, but it changes the shape of the story. Linda Campitelli’s death is no longer only an unsolved homicide remembered by grieving relatives and co-workers. It is now a murder case with a named defendant, a detailed accusation and a court process that will test whether investigators can prove what they say happened that night.
As of Friday, March 13, Perez was jailed without bond on murder and evidence-tampering charges in Palm Beach County. The next major milestone is the start of the formal pretrial process, when prosecutors are expected to begin disclosing more of the evidence behind the affidavit and the defense can start challenging the state’s theory in open court.