Florida murder suspect wanted to take ‘soul’ of man living with his ex and daughter, cops say

Jose Aranibar-Camacho was ready for violence. The single father of a little girl had prepared a blood-clotting treatment and a tourniquet in case he was injured. Then he drove to his daughter’s home and sat in his car with a gun in his hand for over two hours, police said, waiting to take the “soul” of the man who had moved in with his ex-girlfriend.

When the chance arrived, police say Aranibar-Camacho didn’t flinch. He somehow entered apartment 7 at the Belle Isle apartment complex in North Bay Village just before 8 a.m. Monday and shot and killed his ex’s lover. Then he shot her several times in the stomach.

When police got there, Aranibar-Camacho was standing in the hallway, a gun in his right hand, police said, which he quickly gave to police. The child, who police said was just 2 or 3 years old, was unharmed, at least physically.

After he was taken into custody, police searching Aranibar-Camacho’s home found he “detailed a hand-written note providing further information about the planned incident and an apology to his own family,” an officer wrote in the 41-year-old’s arrest report.

What exactly was in that note, police didn’t say. Miami-Dade Police are investigating the shooting.

On Tuesday, Aranibar-Camacho remained jailed without bond, facing charges of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon and child neglect and was ordered to stay away from his ex. Records did not show whether he had retained a defense attorney.

Police said he confessed to shooting both his former girlfriend and her boyfriend, whom police have not named. He told police he was “angry” that the mother of his child was living with another man. The child is in the custody of protective services. Her mother had been upgraded from critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital, police said, and was expected to recover.

North Bay Village is a mostly quiet small island community of about 8,000 on the 79th Street Causeway that links Miami to Miami Beach. Though the village has made news before — like in 2013 when the deck at popular Shucker’s Waterfront Grill collapsed as patrons watched a Miami Heat playoff game and again in 2018 when it was alleged some police officers drank beer during Hurricane Irma — it is mostly free of major violent crime.

The last homicide in North Bay Village was in 2012 when an 18-year-old was charged with strangling an older lover to death and trying to hide the evidence by mailing it to himself.