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Esteban De Jesus Jr., 56, had also attacked the couple with a machete before shooting them and fleeing shortly after 6:30 p.m. Friday, July 7, police in Orlando said Monday.
Leonidas Duran was found dead on the grass of the complex and her husband wounded in their apartment’s doorway, they said. The husband reportedly was recovering in a local hospital.
Warrants were quickly obtained for the arrest of De Jesus on murder and attempted murder charges, Orlando police said in a release.
It didn't take long to catch up with him.
Members of the U.S. Marshals Service NY/NJ Regional Fugitive Task Force found De Jesus on Jefferson Avenue, in the Heights section of Jersey City, around 11 p.m. Saturday, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said.
He ”was subsequently wounded during the arrest and transported to Jersey City Medical Center,” the Orlando police release says. “The suspect ultimately succumbed to his injuries while undergoing treatment.”
De Jesus was officially pronounced dead at 11:44 p.m., Platkin said.
As a result, Orlando police noted, “the homicide case has been cleared.”
The Marshals Service's fugitive task force for New York and New Jersey is comprised of law enforcement officers from local, county, state and federal agencies. Platkin didn't specify the agency or agencies of those involved in Saturday's incident.
Both New Jersey law and his own guidelines require the attorney general to review deaths that occur “during an encounter with a law enforcement officer acting in the officer’s official capacity or while the decedent is in custody," no matter what the circumstances are, the attorney general has said.
The guidelines guarantee that the investigation is done “in a full, impartial and transparent manner," removing politics or personal agendas, he said.
Once an investigation by Platkin’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (OPIA) is completed, the results are presented to the grand jury “in a neutral, objective manner, and with appropriate transparency,” the attorney general said.
The panel then renders a ruling on whether it was a clean shoot or a criminal investigation is warranted.
“An officer may use deadly force in New Jersey when the officer reasonably believes it is immediately necessary to protect the officer or another person from imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm,” Platkin has noted.
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