Man charged in slayings of wife and five children
TAMPA (AP) – A southwest Florida man has been charged with six counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of his wife and five children, authorities said Tuesday.
Mesac Damas was being detained in his native Haiti and was turned over to U.S. custody, Haiti judiciary police director Frantz Termilus told The Associated Press. The station where he was being held is adjacent to Port-au-Prince’s international airport, but a spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince declined comment on when he might be taken to the U.S.
The Collier County Sheriff’s Office said Damas has been ordered held without bond upon his return. Florida investigators obtained a warrant for his arrest on the murder charges and were traveling to the Caribbean nation to interview him. A police spokeswoman said late Tuesday that no information was available on his status.
As Damas was being led out of jail in Haiti, he told a reporter from the Naples Daily News that he killed his family.
“I am going to be buried next to my family,” Damas said as he was being led out of jail in Haiti. “Yes, I killed them.”
On Monday, he told the AP that he had returned to say goodbye to his family, but did not respond when asked if he killed his wife.
The 33-year-old boarded a flight from Miami International Airport to Haiti on Friday. The following evening, deputies found his wife, Guerline Damas, and their five children slain in a Naples town house.
In an interview at the police station where he was being held in Port-au-Prince, Mesac Damas told The Associated Press that he had planned to surrender and that he returned to Haiti to say goodbye to his family. Damas did not respond when asked if he killed his wife.
He was captured by police outside a hotel in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, and the Florida sheriff’s office said its information does not support Damas’ contention that he intended to surrender.
“He missed an awful lot of opportunities to turn himself in,” Collier County Capt. Chris Roberts said at a press conference in Naples on Tuesday.
Sheriff Kevin Rambosk said his agency has asked Haitian authorities to extradite Damas, and that they have two ways to proceed: through the normal extradition process under a treaty in place between the two countries since 1904, or by deporting Damas, since he is a U.S. citizen.
“We certainly don’t know what the Haitian authorities will do,” he said.