But by early summer, the couple's relationship had frayed, and Riley's behavior was attracting the attention of local authorities. Though the couple had lived there almost two years, Avera interacted with Lisa for the first time only a couple months ago, when she was at the mailbox. Avera waved, but she didn't wave back, maintaining a strange, distant expression. On May 25, a few teenagers were leisurely rafting down Muckalee Creek, which runs behind the Rileys' property.
At one point, the group of friends got out of the raft and began walking along the creek. Riley, from his backyard, noticed the kids and approached, wielding a gun.
After telling them they couldn't pass behind his house, Riley "raised a pistol in the air" and fired four shots, the teenagers said in their police statements. In his statement to authorities, Riley said he warned the kids to "move along"; when one of them walked toward his property again, he said he fired two shots into the ground.
A few weeks later, on June 14 around p. That morning, when she had returned from work, Riley had forced her into the bedroom closet, she said. Then he had put a. She said she had pleaded with her husband not to hurt her, and he had let her go. But several hours later, Riley pulled out another pistol and again put it to her head.
Then he moved the gun from her head to his and began crying and screaming. Later that day, she woke up to find her husband next to her in bed, only for him to wrap his legs around her neck and squeeze. Again, he put a pistol to her head. Lisa called when Riley left the house. She still had red marks on her neck and chest when police showed up. Riley hadn't slept in three days, she said — she thought he was having a breakdown.
Riley, after being stopped nearby in the red Caprice, denied there was an argument. He was arrested and charged with battery and three counts of aggravated assault. Days later, she swore in court that she was convinced Riley's behavior stemmed from severe sleep deprivation and requested the no-contact provisions be removed. The morning of July 10, when Lisa was shot, Riley was still on the phone with a operator when paramedics arrived.
Riley was immediately taken into custody and charged with violating bond conditions of the June 14 assault charges by not having turned in his guns. On July 20, he was charged with murder and aggravated assault. He remains in jail without bond. After the shooting, at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, where Lisa worked, a memorial book was set out in the cafeteria, next to a photo of her smiling in her white medical coat.
Avera, the neighbor, tells New Times that Lisa's parents flew in from New York after their daughter died; they said they plan to take custody of 9-month-old Giuseppe. Both families are devastated. Julius, Riley's oldest brother, tells New Times he doesn't have a great relationship with his younger brother. Yathomas has always been an antagonist, even to family members, and has the kind of personality "to run somebody crazy," Julius says.
But he still loves his brother, and he loved Lisa as a sister. It's painful, he says, considering that Yathomas could have killed her. Join the New Times community and help support independent local journalism in Miami. Get the latest updates in news, food, music and culture, and receive special offers direct to your inbox. Support Us Miami's independent source of local news and culture. I support. Support the independent voice of Miami and help keep the future of New Times free.
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David Schick. Don't Miss Out. Join Today. Sign Up. I Support Learn More. Latest Stories. Injustice for Ollie? By Michael Majchrowicz Nov 11, More ». Sign Up Now No Thanks. Become a member and go ad-free! Support Our Journalism. Privacy Policy. This Week's Issue. He had been cheated. He must have been cheated. After the loss, enraged by amateur boxing — the sport that stole his rightful spot as an Olympian — Yathomas went to Florida to visit his father, Julius Riley, Sr.
He seen dollar signs. They all seen dollar signs, and man, it was all over after that. In February , Stocking got the call from Yathomas. He was a professional boxer now. But Yathomas had his contract, he had his money, and his fame was on the way. He had everything. L oretta Riley was thrilled when her brother started dating Koketia King. King was a state correctional officer in Miami, and maybe a relationship with someone on the right side of the law would help Yathomas steer clear of the wrong side, the side he had frequented throughout his youth.
Even more importantly, she knew King was a strong woman, a valuable trait when dealing with her bull-headed brother. Sometimes the butting of heads became too much and the two separated. Never for long, though. In September of , the couple had a child together — a son they named Yaheim. But that was almost four years ago, before Yathomas turned pro. Since then, Yathomas had been home less and less.
The life of a professional boxer was an exciting, yet demanding one, and Yathomas was more than willing to give himself to it. His camp moved around and he began to frequent a gym in the Bronx, training with Stocking and another boxer he had met there — a young medical resident named Lisa.
At the same time, things were beginning to fall apart with Koketia. They always were, but something seemed different this time. Yathomas had heard that she had become wrapped up in a tax fraud scheme involving inmates at her prison, and he flew down to Miami to confront her. The way he tells it, on Thursday, June 10, , Yathomas and Koketia were at her house when he pulled out a letter he had found implicating Koketia in the illegal scheme.
King fired two shots, hitting herself twice, but neither was a fatal wound. Yathomas immediately called Koketia told police a different story. That was the truth, she said, but that was all of the truth she was willing to divulge. It was enough, though, to arrest Yathomas.
This was supposed to be the peak of his career. He had been waiting patiently backstage, and now the 8—0 Thomas the Terrible Punisher was ready to step into the spotlight any day. He was hidden away, alone in the dark, where once again he would wait to prove everyone wrong. J uly , Florida City, Fla. The parents had been married for three years. Lorene was turning 21 in a few months. Julius would be 28 in September. From the outside, this was a happy family. Julius had stopped working and started accusing her of cheating.
Then came the abuse. Lorene took her family about as far away from Florida City as she could manage. In , she married a Navy man, gathered her children and moved to Seattle. When he was 13, the troubled, troublesome youngest child asked to visit his biological father.
An elated Julius Riley sent a plane ticket, and after school was out for the summer, Yathomas flew back to find Florida City nothing like the memories he had clung to.
His father had remarried, started to run a soup kitchen out of his house and placed a strict curfew on his children that he enforced with a switch. Lorene would offer another reason for why Julius saw the best in their son. If he had my genes, he would be a good child. All my other kids are good. What was going on?
In , after another move, the family sat in a juvenile courtroom in Ohio and was asked to answer exactly that. There are Lorene and Julius, not speaking. None of the Rileys can look at him. Yathomas would spend five years in prison for the assault. In went a child, and out came a man, 21 years old and searching for a purpose.
Wandering the streets of San Diego in , freshly liberated, he would find it in Travis Stocking. F ighting came easy. But this? Sitting in jail, unable to affect anything? This was agonizing. After hearing Yathomas tell his side of what happened with Koketia, both Julius Sr. But Lorene and Loretta quickly distanced themselves.
Lorene remembers the feeling of the day she found out Koketia had been shot. And he did that. As hard as it was for her to say it, and though she had her doubts, Loretta believed her brother was guilty as well.
Neither she nor her mom could believe Koketia would try to end her life. But Yathomas losing control? That made sense. The person who believed in Yathomas the most was his new girlfriend, Lisa. She and Yathomas had met while training with Stocking in a boxing gym in the Bronx and immediately fallen for each other.
Amodio was finishing her residency at a local hospital, and when Yathomas asked her to be his cutman during fights, she jumped at the opportunity. She was always the most expressive at his boxing matches, screaming and gasping, throwing her hands in the air and holding them nervously against her body. She climbed through the ropes and stepped onto the mat, finding a lawyer and, with him in tow, setting out to gather evidence.
After multiple medical procedures, including a bath, Koketia still had a trace of gunshot residue on one fingernail. Yathomas, who was taken to jail directly from the house, had none on his hands. But after looking at the same report, Lisa — who was training to be an emergency room physician — came to the opposite conclusion. Then, in , a Miami New Times story dropped a bombshell. It was sent to Koketia by an inmate at the prison where she worked. Near the bottom, however, one sentence stands out.
A phone number contains 10 digits. A social security number has nine. Williams claimed her identity had been stolen when she was jailed in and that false tax returns had been filed in her name ever since. Less than two months later, the prosecution filed a memorandum. The prosecution would have argued three key pieces of evidence:. But those arguments never saw the light of a courtroom. He and Lisa married and bought a house in Albany, where she started a job at a small hospital. Yathomas opened up a gym there, meant to be the headquarters for his resurgence.
In October of , the couple had a son, Giuseppi. The family left the hospital in a limo. In his first year as a pro at Star Boxing, , Yathomas fought four times and won four times. That was expected. That three of those fights ended in knockouts — two in the first round — was an added bonus for DeGuardia.
He was a real fighter. For the most part, Yathomas was everything DeGuardia had hoped for. Four more wins in vaulted Yathomas to an 8—0 start and the precipice of a bigger stage. He had spells of times where, if he would have listened, he would have been moved up even quicker. A February fight in was changed from a unanimous decision win to a no-contest after Yathomas tested positive for illegal substances.
Other times, he cancelled a week in advance. At all times, it seemed, Yathomas was fighting with his management, his trainers, DeGuardia and Katz. Not a violent guy, but a stubborn guy who thought he knew it all.
He could have been world champion. Not yet. So the boxer asked the matchmaker to set up a fight. Not a cupcake opponent, but a real challenger. He had no time to waste. Katz found one, DeGuardia set to work promoting the match, and everyone around Yathomas set to work trying to convince him not to fight. Every part of his body wanted to talk Yathomas out of this fight, but by now, he knew his boxer.
Yathomas only listened to you if you were telling him what he wanted to hear. He was going to fight. The fight was scheduled for May Finally, as he always knew it would, the spotlight had found him. But my goal is a World Championship, nothing less, just like it always has been. In the ring on May 11, however, nothing was as it had been.
Yathomas lost the eight-round fight by unanimous decision. It was his first professional loss, and it would be his last professional fight. He had a wife and a baby and a house, and in them, he had a purpose. From everything his friends and family knew, life was perfect. But as he had done with boxing, Yathomas poured his all into that singular purpose, and unlike with boxing, that began to create problems. He showed up in the hospital parking lot one afternoon wearing a shoulder holster with two guns strapped in.
They were just toys, he assured the man who confronted him, yet it was anything but reassuring. When Loretta visited the couple, she saw a toxic relationship. If Yathomas wanted something, Lisa would drop everything to get it for him right then.
If Lisa wanted something, well, she rarely told Yathomas. But all of that was circumstantial. Lisa told everyone that her relationship was fine, that she was happy. It was the middle of June Yathomas had just left the house, Lisa told the operator.
She begged for help, for herself and her husband. It is crazy. Yathomas called his wife from jail later that day. Yathomas blamed Lisa for putting him in jail.
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