The Riviera Motel in Kissimmee, Florida, isn’t the sort of place where stories make the news. It’s a quiet, unassuming stop for travelers who come and go without notice. But on December 22, 2024, the silence at the motel shattered, leaving a family forever scarred.
Melinda Irizarry had no reason to think her night would end in bloodshed. She ordered a pizza for her family, expecting nothing more than a quiet evening. When the delivery driver, 22-year-old Brianna Alvelo, arrived, things began with a simple transaction: $33.10 for the pizza, paid with a $50 bill. Alvelo explained that giving change was against the store’s policy, which forced Irizarry to recalculate. The result was a $2 tip—a gesture meant to conclude the encounter.
But something about the exchange shifted. Witnesses later recalled the delivery driver rolling her eyes and leaving without a word. The air turned heavy, but no one in Room 117 could have imagined what would come next.
Minutes later, there was another knock on the door. This time, Alvelo wasn’t alone. A masked man stood beside her, carrying a firearm. They forced their way into the room. The scene turned to chaos as Alvelo, now armed with a knife, lunged at Irizarry.
The attack was brutal. Irizarry’s instincts took over as she fought to protect her 5-year-old daughter, shielding her from the blows. Alvelo stabbed her 14 times, each strike more vicious than the last. Irizarry’s boyfriend could only watch in horror as the masked accomplice held them at gunpoint.
When the intruders fled, they left behind a room smeared with blood and the echo of a child’s terrified cries. Irizarry lay crumpled on the floor, her body torn apart but alive. Her boyfriend called 911, desperate to save her.
At the hospital, doctors worked to repair the damage—deep cuts to her arms, legs, chest, and abdomen, along with a ruptured lung. Miraculously, she survived. And in the aftermath of the attack, as if the universe couldn’t twist the knife further, Irizarry learned she was pregnant.
“It should have been joyful news,”
a family friend later said.
“Instead, it felt like a cruel reminder of what she’d almost lost.”
Brianna Alvelo was arrested within hours, facing a laundry list of charges, including attempted murder, home invasion, and aggravated assault. She sits in the Osceola County Jail, awaiting trial. But her accomplice remains a ghost—a man whose identity and motives are as much a mystery as his whereabouts.
For the family and the community, the attack is a lingering wound. Marco’s Pizza, the company Alvelo worked for, issued a statement expressing deep regret and promising to cooperate fully with the investigation. Meanwhile, the incident has sparked conversations about tipping culture and the fragile threads that hold human interactions together.
“How does something as small as $2 end like this?”
a local resident wondered.
“It’s terrifying to think about.”
Room 117 at the Riviera Motel is quiet again. The walls, scrubbed clean, betray no sign of the horror that unfolded within them. But for Irizarry, her daughter, and everyone who knows their story, the scars remain.
And somewhere out there, a masked accomplice hides in the shadows, the memory of that night clinging to him like smoke. All of it—a family broken, a life nearly ended—over two dollars.
