An accused killer allegedly put on his victim’s dress and wig and then forced her boyfriend to also wear her clothing to help dump the body in a Florida swamp, according to court documents.
Arnaldo Cintron, 42, allegedly murdered Hiojaira Velez Bonilla, a 41-year-old mom of two teenage boys, after she confronted him for not paying any bills or helping out around the house after he moved into her home in Riverview, according to court documents.
He “pushed the victim to the floor of the kitchen, armed himself with a kitchen knife from the counter and began stabbing the victim repeatedly while calling her, ‘Bitch, bitch, bitch,’” according to the docs.
Cintron and his girlfriend — the victim’s cousin, who’d moved into the house with him — then stopped Bonilla’s boyfriend, Elga Davis II, from leaving after he walked in during the murder, the court docs said.
Cintron allegedly told the murdered mom’s boyfriend he was going to “help them clean it up” or he “was next,” the boyfriend told officers.
He also threatened to kill him and the murdered woman’s 16-year-old son, who was in his bedroom down the hallway, if he threatened to talk to anyone, the boyfriend told cops.
After cleaning the kitchen and wrapping the victim’s body in porch screening, the trio put her body in a cardboard box inside her car, according to the boyfriend — who said it took them up to four hours.
At one point, they were interrupted by one of the dead woman’s sons — who went back to bed after they told him his mom had left the house, the docs said.
Cintron then allegedly ordered Davis to change into his dead girlfriend’s clothes — while Cintron put on one of her dresses and “a curly, poofy wig,” deputies said. They were caught in surveillance footage as they drove the body away from the house.
Davis said he was forced to drive his girlfriend’s killer to an apartment complex in Tampa to meet a man nicknamed “Tarzan” to discuss how they would dispose of the body.
The killer referred to his victim as “one eye Willy” because of the eye patch she wore — while one of the accused suggested the dead woman’s “teeth be kicked out” and her “hands removed” to make it harder to identify her body, deputies said.
Instead, they made him drive to a dense mangrove swamp in the Weedon Island Preserve near St. Petersburg, Fla., where they dumped her body along with other evidence, including the murder weapon and towels used to wipe up the blood, deputies said.
Cintron offered to share some of the victim’s money with Davis in exchange for his silence, and asked for the dead woman’s debit card pin, according to police.
Once Cintron and his girlfriend had gone, Davis went straight to the police and led deputies to where the body had been dumped, the documents stated.
Cintron and his girlfriend were arrested on Aug. 18. Cintron has been charged with second-degree murder with a weapon, while his girlfriend faces a charge of accessory after the fact.
Both have been charged with unlawfully holding or moving a dead human body in unapproved conditions, tampering with physical evidence, and tampering with a witness.
Sheriffs haven’t disclosed whether the third man, “Tarzan,” will face charges for allegedly helping to dump the body.
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