A Florida real estate agent will face murder charges in the deaths of two homeless men late last year, Miami-Dade prosecutors and Miami police announced Friday.
Authorities used video surveillance footage, cellphone records and bullet analysis to build a case against 25-year-old Willy Suarez Maceo, according to the Miami Herald.
Maceo has been in custody for weeks on an attempted murder charge that involved the shooting of another homeless man on Dec. 21. In that incident, Jorge Jardines was shot in the face but survived.
Two hours later, Jerome Antonio Price, 56, was shot to death while he slept in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, the Herald reported.
On Friday, Maceo was charged in Price’s murder as well as that of Manuel Perez, 59, who was stabbed to death in downtown Miami on Oct. 16.
Authorities on Friday will announce murder charges against real estate agent Willy Maceo in the killing of two homeless men in Miami. @DavidOvalle305 https://t.co/kjugjD7Xu9
— Martin Vassolo (@martindvassolo) February 4, 2022
Surveillance video of the fatal December shooting was critical in the arrest, according to WPLG-TV.
Miami police examined a Glock 9mm handgun owned by Maceo and found that the bullets were a match for shell casings found at the scenes of the shootings, Chief Manuel Morales said last month.
Police have said they do not know of any motive for the killings.
“Homeless individuals for no reason have been brutally targeted,” Morales said last month, according to the Herald.
“They felt the pain and injustice suffered at the hands of a brutal individual,” he said then.
At the time, Morales called Maceo a “suspected serial killer” and said there might be others “who suffered at the hands of this ruthless criminal.”
Maceo was denied bond after his arrest.
“If he’s guilty of these crimes and they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt, he has a very, very peculiar pattern of finding unprotected individuals in the streets that are not even awake, and going up to them,” Circuit Court Judge Alberto Milian said.
“It appears to be an execution-style for reasons that are unknown,” he said.
All of the homeless men attacked were lying on the ground at the time of the attacks, police said.
UPDATED: Miami real estate agent in custody as cops announce arrest of ‘suspected serial killer.’ He's suspected of two murders and the shooting of a third man. All the victims were homeless.https://t.co/jzXBkfKIb4
— David Ovalle (@DavidOvalle305) December 23, 2021
Last month, Ron Book, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, said of the shootings, “This tragic news cuts to the heart of our community.”
“No one should be the victim of gun violence let alone our most vulnerable, those experiencing homelessness,” he said, according to WFOR-TV.