By Will Dabbs, MD
Stylized violence is reliably titillating. Modern entertainment is chock absolutely full of it. Eventually we all get so inured to the theatrical carnage that we can convince ourselves that such stuff doesn’t actually happen out here in the real world. Only, that’s not true.
“Miami Vice” and “Scarface”were perennial faves. Set during the bloody cocaine wars in South Florida, both shows, though fundamentally dissimilar, were immensely popular. A common theme was the drug cartel assassin who mercilessly guns down his mark at close range and in public with an automatic weapon. While we have seen that very sequence enough times of screens both large and small to consider it a trope, in certain instances life really did imitate art.
The Setting
The Dadeland shopping mall in Kendall, Florida, opened in 1962. Situated in the Miami suburbs, Dadeland was 50 acres of pure unfettered capitalism. This exalted altar to the modern professional consumer consisted of anchor stores, niche shops, specialty kiosks, and an expansive food court. Dadeland also played host to Crown Liquors, a popular local purveyor of alcoholic spirits.
German Jimenez Panesso was one of Crown Liquor’s regular customers. German was his name, not his nationality. To keep his posse topped off with Chivas Regal, Panesso made a weekly run to Crown in the company of his bodyguard, one Juan Carlos Hernandez. The two men travelled in an armored Mercedes limousine. Though he strived with varying degrees of success to keep a low profile, the dark, handsome 37-year-old obviously came from money. However, Panesso hadn’t inherited his millions from his dad or won the lottery. German Jimenez Panesso was a Colombian drug lord.
At 2:30 pm on July 11, 1979, the two men left the safety of their car and walked into the liquor store like they owned the place. The staff greeted them warmly. Both men were sufficiently comfortable in this space that Hernandez left his 9mm Browning Hi-Power behind in the Mercedes.
The Hit
Meanwhile, a white Ford Econoline van pulled up and parked by the curb outside the liquor store. One side of the van was stenciled with “Happy Time Complete Party Supply.” The other read, “Happy Time Complete Supply Party.” The question of whether the van supplied the party or was the party itself is one of life’s many curious imponderables.
Two men nonchalantly exited the van and surreptitiously followed Panesso and Hernandez into the shop. Crown Liquors did a thriving business, and this time of day folks were stocking up for the parties that would inevitably burst forth later that evening. Before the Colombians had time to react, the larger of the two men produced a sound-suppressed .380 Beretta pistol and shot German Panesso four times in the face. Right on cue, his companion threw down with a fully automatic .45 ACP MAC-10 submachine gun and slathered the store with pain. In so doing, he also messily killed Panesso’s burly companion, Juan Carlos Hernandez.
The two cartel sicarios then made haste back to their party-mobile, liberally spraying the crowded parking lot and surrounding shops with machine gun fire to dissuade curious bystanders. The cops later found the van abandoned. They discovered quarter-inch steel armored plate affixed around the inside of vehicle along with several gun ports hidden behind nondescript plastic covers. Within the van, the police found more than 20 firearms, including shotguns, handguns, and another machine gun or two. Panesso and Hernandez were the 37th and 38th Miami homicides for 1979.
The Villains (Sort Of)
No one was ever prosecuted for the two murders. However, compelling evidence now points to Griselda Blanco, the famed “Black Widow,” also known as “The Godmother.” Jorge “Rivi” Ayala (one of Blanco’s top hitmen) and Guillermo Leon “Chiruza” Velasquez were both linked to the mall killing afterwards.
Ayala later pled guilty to several other gangland slayings but not that of Panesso and Hernandez specifically. Blanco, for her part, was an undeniably bloodthirsty lass. She eventually served time in U.S. Federal prison for drug offenses and murder before being deported back to Colombia in 2004. The Black Widow was shot in the head by a drive-by assassin on a motorcycle while shopping for groceries with her daughter-in-law at the Cardiso butcher shop in Medellin eight years later. It seems that being a Colombian drug lord has a pretty craptastic retirement plan. That guy was never caught, either.
Editor’s Note: The Dadeland Mall Massacre is universally credited as the killing that kicked off the bloody Miami Cocaine Wars of the ’70s and ’80s.
