Man, pregnant woman slain
Body found in Fort Lauderdale dumpster
Hollywood police say the suspect in the slaying of a pregnant woman is her husband; the woman’s fatherin-law was found dead earlier Tuesday.
The body of Roosevelt Bernard was found in an empty lot, 80 steps from his immaculately kept Hollywood home. The remains of his pregnant daughter Martine Bernard were discovered in a garbage bin in an alley, about the same short distance from her Fort Lauderdale apartment.
Father and daughter had both been shot — and detectives say they suspect her husband, Cassandritz Blanc, 22, in both killings.
Blanc was in the main Broward County jail in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday, accused of the premeditated murder of his 20-year-old wife, who was six months pregnant. He is also accused in that case of abusing a dead body.
A Hollywood police spokeswoman called Blanc the “prime suspect” in Roosevelt Bernard’s killing, though on Tuesday he had not yet been charged in that case.
Roosevelt Bernard, 68, did not appear at a family gathering on Saturday night and relatives alerted police. His remains were found Monday at 8:30 a.m. in the lot on South 29th Avenue near Washington Street, police and neighbors said. Fearing for Martine Bernard’s safety, police asked the public to help find her.
Her body was found Tuesday at 4:30 a.m.
in the unnamed alley behind 522 NE First Avenue in Fort Lauderdale.
Alexis McDonald watched as police examined the garbage bin and a nearby dumpster. The porch of the apartment she shares with her husband, Robert McDonald, faces the crime scene.
“We’ve never had any issues here,” Alexis McDonald said of their home and the Flagler Village neighborhood they’ve lived in for four years. “It’s a little creepy. The police told us it was an isolated incident and not to worry.”
Police did not say when Martine Bernard’s body was left there, what may have prompted the slayings or whether the Bernards were shot with the same weapon.
McDonald said her husband put trash into the dumpster Monday night
and didn’t notice anything unusual.
“We didn’t hear or see anything,” she said.
Crime scene investigators loaded several red plastic bags of evidence from the garbage bins into the back of a police truck and drove off about 2 p.m., but the alley remained closed to traffic and was guarded by patrol cars.L
Later on Tuesday, relatives and mourners arrived at the home on Washington Street in Hollywood that Roosevelt Bernard shared with his wife, Yvose Bernard.
They included his son Ryan Bernard, a Miami Gardens police officer who kept watch in front of the house from his marked patrol truck.
Investigators asked anyone with information about the cases to call Fort Lauderdale Homicide Detective O. Almanzar, at 954-828-5546 or the main dispatch number of the Hollywood Police Department at 954-764-4357.