A man invited to a threesome at a South Florida house while Hurricane Irma ravaged the state is accused of killing the man who invited him, police say.
Police arrested Travis Emanuel Watson, 30, in connection with the September 10 murder of Ariel Fleitas Gonzalez, 50, in his Hollywood, Florida, home, the New York Post reported.
Police are still seeking the other member of the threesome.
A friend of Gonzalez who was concerned that she had not seen him since before Irma called the police to the Chatham Terrace apartment complex, reporting a foul smell coming from his apartment.
Officers who searched the apartment found blood spatter inside and drag marks leading to a closet that contained the victim’s body, WPLG reports.
Police say they found the decomposing body wrapped in a comforter and shrink wrap, adding that only the top of his head was visible. The victim’s head showed signs of trauma, police said.
Neighbors said they witnessed two men entering and leaving Gonzalez’s apartment the day of the murder. They described one man as wearing a long, blond wig and the other as Watson, whom police believe is homeless.
Detectives know the identity of the man wearing the wig but are not releasing his name until he is in custody.
Watson told detectives that the sexual encounter was consensual between himself, a man who called himself Watson’s husband, and the victim. He added that the encounter turned violent when Watson’s partner got angry at Gonzalez for allegedly having sex with Watson.
The unnamed partner allegedly “tortured” Gonzalez by beating him with a hanger, power cord, and broomstick before tying his hands behind his back with a bed sheet and a belt. The suspect-at-large then allegedly poured hot grease on Gonzalez’s body.
“Stop, stop you are going to kill the man, you’re trippin’,” Watson reportedly said to his partner after the alleged grease-pouring. Watson claimed his partner replied: “I know what I’m doing, I got this.”
Once the two realized Gonzalez was dead, Watson and his partner allegedly stuffed Gonzalez’s body in a bathtub to wash the evidence away.
They allegedly wrapped him in the bed sheet and the shrink wrap before stuffing his body in the closet.
Police arrested Watson in Fort Lauderdale several days after the killing on suspicion of murder, unarmed robbery, kidnapping, and not reporting Gonzalez’s death.
A judge ordered Watson be held without bond for the kidnapping charge at his September 28 arraignment hearing, the Sun-Sentinel reported.
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