Hialeah resident Willy Betantcourt, 26, was arrested and taken to court, where the judge read him the serious charge he faces and denied him bail.
“Sir, you have been arrested for first degree murder. There is probable cause for the prosecution as he shot the individual in the face and killed him,” the judge said.
The incident he is accused of occurred this Monday, after 4 p.m., at 430 West 53rd Street, Hialeah.
José Torres, spokesperson for the Hialeah Police Department, assures that “Mr. Willy and the victim, who live together, had an argument; Mr. Willy armed himself with a firearm and shot the victim. The victim died as a result of the gunshot.
Police say the victim is a 19-year-old man. According to the arrest report, upon arriving at the scene of the incident, detectives found one person dead. The upper part of the body was covered with a garbage bag.
Until late at night, there was commotion in this area of Hialeah.
A local resident says:
“Wrecked cars, very aggressive people who came screaming out of the door of the house.”
Betancourt had escaped after the incident after being confronted by other residents of the house and was arrested half an hour later in “East” Hialeah.
“I knew from the first moment that it was something like a dead person because there were too many policemen, at least 50 patrol cars, helicopters. And it’s scary, “says a local resident .
The police report says detectives recovered two bullet casings. They also obtained a photo, audio messages and a video that the suspect sent to a known person.
The photo shows the victim asleep in a bed, with no visible injuries. The video shows the 19-year-old in the same position, but bleeding from the head.
According to the report, when they reviewed the audio messages, Willy Betancourt confessed to shooting the victim.
“An investigation remains open as detectives are still working with whatever they find to determine for themselves what happened here,” Torres said.