MIAMI – Miami police announced Friday that they’ve arrested a burglar who shot and killed a 62-year-old man in front of his granddaughter the day prior. That burglar, police said, is the victim’s son-in-law.
The shooting happened at around 8:30 a.m. Thursday in the 700 block of Southwest Fifth Street in the city’s Little Havana neighborhood.
Police said 38-year-old Carlos Manuel Rosales, who lives nearby, “completely covered” himself to conceal his identity and burglarized an apartment with the victim’s 11-year-old granddaughter inside, alone.
Rosales is the girl’s step-uncle and victim’s son-in-law; he’s married to the sister of the girl’s mother, police said.
Police said the girl called her mother, who then called the girl’s grandfather, Luciano Matute, who rushed over to confront the suspect.
Rosales shot and killed Matute, ran away, got into a white Toyota Tundra and took off in the truck, according to police.
Police said they identified the truck’s license plate and tracked it down to Southwest Seventh Avenue and Fourth Street just after 3:45 p.m. that same day.
Authorities said they pulled Rosales over in the 1100 block of Southwest Seventh Street less than 10 minutes later and took him into custody.
Police said further investigation revealed that Rosales had also been molesting a girl since she was 8. The victim told police she also witnessed Rosales molesting a 9-year-old girl, according to an arrest report. Local 10 News is withholding the relationship between Rosales and the victims in order to avoid identifying them.
Rosales, a Honduran national, was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on charges of second-degree murder, lewd and lascivious molestation on a child and lewd and lascivious exhibition on a child, according to jail records.
His bond was listed in those records as “to be set.”