The case of the shooting of Red Sox star David Ortiz has been reopened after a woman from Venezuela was arrested Tuesday.
Interpol and the Dominican Republic National Police said 25-year-old María Fernanda Villasmil Manzanilla had been arrested in the case.
Authorities have been on the hunt for the woman since Big Papi was shot in Santo Domingo in June of 2019.
Ortiz's attorney spoke exclusively to NBC10 Boston on behalf of the Hall-of-Famer.
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"She's accused of association with wrongdoers, she's accused of having been in the vehicle with of the accused on the day of the attack," Lucy Objio said. "We don't know if she was part of the plan, but she was at the day of the attack."
The country's attorney general said Ortiz was at a bar in Santo Domingo the night of the shooting when a man who arrived by motorcycle fired at him point-blank, nearly killing the famous slugger.
Ortiz would be treated in the capital and later would undergo surgeries at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Eleven people were arrested in the immediate aftermath. In total, 13 were charged with attempted murder, and 10 were convicted.
Early on, Dominican prosecutors declared the shooting a case of mistaken identity. Ortiz hired former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis as a private investigator. Davis found that he was targeted by César "The Abuser" Peralta, the Boston Globe reported in 2022.
The current attorney general agrees Ortiz was, in fact, targeted. The case led some of Ortiz's fans to lose faith in the justice system in the Dominican Republic.
It also left Dominican fans in Boston to lose faith in the justice system.
"Well, I don't have too much faith, but they do the job slow, and they have to do it now, because after he sent somebody to investigate everything, they found out what's going on," said Freddy Cabral.
"He's a great person and a great star, and we're happy that he's getting some justice," said Ceeshan Ali.
With this latest arrest nearly five years after the shooting, Ortiz still has faith in authorities in his home country, according to his attorney.
"We have been showing confidence and collaboration with the justice and the results are there," said Objio.
