Latest update November 7th, 2024 1:00 AM
Latest News
- Govt. hails US$1.5B gold project by Canadian firm
- Exxon says they are finalising area of Stabroek Block to hand back to govt.
- At least 38 people killed in dozens of Israeli strikes on eastern Lebanon
- Trump re-elected
- Citizens can no longer trust PPP, PNC to make decisions for a future with oil-Glenn Lall
Search warrant describes seized property in Belmonte slaying case
(Orlando Sentinel) Police seized a hammer and what they say is blood evidence from water drains in the home of Guyanese Natalie Belmonte, whose son, Gerard Belmonte, is charged with her slaying.
Murdered: Natalie Belmonte
A search warrant inventory of property taken from the house in
Accused: Gerard Belmonte
July lists a condom wrapper, blood evidence from the master bedroom footboard and armoire, towels, and 68 Unisom non-prescription sleeping pills.
Pembroke Pines Police Detective Wayne Katz also removed from the residence — on the 19300 block of Northwest Fifth Street in Pembroke Pines — blood swabs and blood evidence on a gray-handled mop, a laundry room sink drain pipe, washer hose and a box of trash bags, the warrant shows.
Police would not comment on the significance of the property that was collected.
“In seizing items for the search warrant, we take anything that we believe could have connection with a crime to be processed for evidentiary value,” Pembroke Pines Police Capt. Dan Rakofsky said.
The victim’s bra and toothbrush also were taken for DNA, the warrant states.
Police arrested Gerard Belmonte, 21, on July 20 for the murder of his adoptive mother, a 43-year-old real estate agent. Natalie Belmonte adopted Gerard, her first cousin, in 2000 from their native country, Guyana, when he was 10.
Investigators say she died in the early morning hours of Sunday, July 17, after returning home from a party with her son.
Gerard Belmonte has pleaded not guilty and demanded a jury trial. His lawyer could not be reached for comment Friday.
After her remains were found in a marsh about a mile from her home where police think Gerard Belmonte liked to shoot a paintball gun, 400 of her heartbroken family members and friends held a candlelight vigil there.
The search warrant describes how Gerard Belmonte told police he was drunk when the pair returned home from the party at 2:30 a.m. and that he slept until 11 a.m. that Sunday.
But a neighbour’s surveillance video showed a busy schedule for a man who police say appears to fit the “general appearance of the subject,” Gerard Belmonte.
According to the surveillance video that Rakofsky said investigators have reviewed “numerous times”:
At 5:08 a.m. July 17, a person leaves the home, turns Natalie Belmonte’s maroon 2007 Lexus ES350 around in the driveway and backs it up toward the garage.
Four minutes later, a person appears to be dragging a large object draped in a white cloth to the rear of the vehicle and struggles to place in the trunk something police say is “consistent in size with that of an adult human being.”
The car is driven away at 5:16 a.m. and returns eight minutes later.
After about an hour, two large garbage bags are loaded into the trunk and a person drives the car away at 6:23 a.m., again returning in eight minutes.
Around 7:45 a.m., a person appears to be cleaning the trunk interior.
Two K-9 dogs trained to locate cadavers alerted investigators twice during a search, the warrant says: on the Lexus’ trunk and rear bumper, and from the vehicle to the front door of the home.
Natalie Belmonte’s sister, Michaella Teixeira, went looking for her sister early on July 18, and told police that she saw what she thought were blood smears on the floor of the master bathroom, investigators said.
Separate from his felony case, Belmonte also is being detained on a federal immigration hold ordered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
A broad-based movement for the people’s voice on oil
…Peeping Tom Kaieteur News- The call for a referendum on Guyana’s oil contract is a step in the right direction,... more
Rising Gun Crimes in the Caribbean: Urgent Action required by all
By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News – There is an alarming surge in gun-related violence, particularly among younger... more
Weekend Cartoon
