A Filipino has been charged for the murder of his landlady—a 71-year-old Filipina—in Jacksonville, Florida last September.
Hector Crisostomo Batoon, 45, was a tenant at the home of Liwanag Navarro at Majuro Drive in Jacksonville, and was charged for her death on Sept. 7, just as authorities were bracing for the landfall of Hurricane “Irma,” police said.
Batoon is being held without bond at a detention facility in Jacksonville. He is expected to appear in court on Nov. 8.
Other Filipinos in the neighborhood were shocked at the apparent murder of Navarro, who was a longtime resident of Majuro Drive but was found beaten to death at her home.
Authorities said the night before the crime, Batoon wanted to pick a fight with some neighbors. On the afternoon of the day of Navarro’s murder, Batoon was found naked, smeared in blood, walking around their neighborhood and going back inside the house he lived in.
Police contacted Navarro’s family members and as they entered the house, they were horrified by the scene.
“The detectives we talked to said it was one of the most gruesome scenes that they had seen in years. She had been beaten, stabbed, and then cut with a long sword. It’s very gruesome, and you never think something like this is gonna happen next door to you,” another neighbor, who requested anonymity, said in local reports.