A man is accused of brutally beating a transgender woman to death and mutilating the body a week after being released from jail and put on probation, police said.
The body of 37-year-old Andrea Dorias Dos Passos was found near the Miami City Ballet on Tuesday.
Miami Beach Police said they were able to obtain surveillance video showing a man using a metal pipe to beat Dos Passos, who was sleeping near the entrance of the ballet.
Police said Dos Passos was found with lacerations to the head and face, a puncture wound in the chest, and wooden sticks shoved into the nostrils. One of the sticks protruded out of the eye.
The video reportedly shows the man toss the metal pipe in a garbage can before walking away. Police said they were able to obtain fingerprints from the pipe and identify a suspect named 53-year-old Gregory Fitzgerald Gibert.
Police said he had blood stains on his shoes and shorts when they found him.
The man was arrested and initially charged with second-degree murder before a judge elevated it to first-degree murder.
“I’ve had a chance to review the arrest affidavit, to me it looks like it should be a first-degree murder not a second-degree,” said Miami-Dade Judge Mindy Glazer on Thursday, “based on the facts alleged in this arrest affidavit where he allegedly struck the victim with a metal pipe about the head and face, and then it looks like he defiled the body by doing other things to the victim after she was deceased.”
The judge appointed Gibert a public defender but refused bond.
Records show that the suspect had only been released one week before he allegedly killed Dos Passos.
Gibert had been held on a charge of armed robbery and aggravated assault but was released after being given four years’ probation. WTVJ-TV reported that Miami-Dade prosecutors wanted a sentence of 10 years for Gilbert, but weakness in the case led them to release him from jail immediately after he agreed to plead guilty.
The charging document said Dos Passos began identifying as a woman in Oct. 2023.
A spokesperson for the Miami Beach Police said that there was no indication that Gibert killed Dos Passos because of gender bias.
“No evidence alludes to the fact that this was a hate crime. The evidence does not allude to the fact that the defendant targeted the victim based off her sexual orientation and or her gender,” Christopher Bess said.
“What we do know is that the offender was a very violent individual and should not have been on our streets,” he added.
The victim’s stepfather said Dos Passos had suffered from mental illness in recent years.
“I think that the system let her down,” he said tearfully. “At this moment I also have the feeling that I let her down.”
Here’s more about the incident:
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Source: TheBlaze
