ID Go: In Miami, a young mother has no choice but to shut the door on her warring neighbors as a three-year feud over a patch of land and differing moral standards reaches a bloody and tragic conclusion. -Home’s Where the Hearse Is, Fear Thy Neighbor (S1, E5)
Retiree Baldomero Fernandez, 62, murdered Army veteran James Escoto, 29, in Miami, Florida on October 4, 1986. Fernandez claimed self-defense but the evidence said otherwise. Fernandez shot Jimmy multiple times and then bashed his head in with a rock to kill him. Jimmy’s son believes this homicide was pre-meditated. After a plea deal, Baldomero Fernandez was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 7 years in prison but he only served 3 years.
James ‘Jimmy’ Escoto, U.S. Army Veteran (Photo Credit: Investigation Discovery)
Related Links:
Community Support Helps Free Suspect
In Miami, Criminals Become the Victims as Citizens Fight Back
Vigilante killings on the rise | In Miami, sympathy for those who take the law into their own hands
Baldomero Fernandez killed neighbor James ‘Jimmy Escoto’ in Miami feud
Home’s Where the Hearse Is | Fear Thy Neighbor | Investigation Discovery (S1, E5)
Home’s Where the Hearse Is | Fear Thy Neighbor | Investigation Discovery (website)
Home’s Where the Hearse Is | Fear Thy Neighbor | Investigation Discovery (Amazon)
Fear Thy Neighbor: 23 Veteran Cases Featured on Investigation Discovery
MILITARY JUSTICE FOR ALL 
Baldomero Fernandez serving 3 years was a joke!!! It’s ok though because he’ll have a much higher power to answer to and he’ll WISH he was in that prison instead of burning in hell for eternity for what he did to Mr Escoto!!! To those who helped release this “upstanding citizen”, I wouldn’t turn my back to that mean old evil bastard if I were any of you! Typical injustice at its finest on behalf of the Escoto family! How pathetic! RIP James Escoto♥️
What a travesty of justice. Take away everything else except how the convicted shot the deceased, then exited his car, HUNTED him down, shot him till gun was empty. Hunted him down AGAIN as deceased tried to run and hide. Pistol whipped him till gun was forcibly removed from his hand…. THEN, and this is where I had to turn my eyes away from the video, SMASHED the defenceless victim, now lying still on the ground, repeatedly ( how many times? 10? 20?) with a CINDERBLOCK. If an old man can lift a cinderblock over his head 20 times and then bring it down in a threatening manner, he is not very old and weak and vulnerable, I’d say…..
Sorry, but the fact is, it would be a better choice to sell my house and move, rather than be jailed and end up being a felon for life. Never mind that you’ve effectively destroyed another family- people completely innocent, who will forever more suffer because of this senseless act.
The old man should have been jailed and the key thrown away. Vigilantism never works! Look at Jan 6 2021……. Rednecks know everything, supposedly, right?
I don’t live in this country of origin, but it seriously makes me shake my head in disbelief and anger and disgust. The common thief or burglar gets more time than this dude did.
Jimmy’s family: you’ve been handed a raw deal. I don’t know how a person recovers from this. Always know there ARE people out here who believe the outcome of this was unfair, unjust, just a ridiculous mockery of laws, the very idea of peace and order, basically the entire process behind this event. My heart is with you all.