Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Video captured suspect disposing of body, police say
Cassandritz Blanc seemed to follow a detailed plan when Hollywood police say he shot his father-in-law, dumped the corpse in an empty lot and set it on fire.
But what Blanc didn’t know was that a neighbor’s home had video cameras that recorded him disposing of the body, police say.
The horror began on June 9, when Roosevelt Bernard and his wife, Yvose Bernard, were at their home on Washington Street, getting ready for a family gathering.
They were unaware their 20-year-old daughter Martine Bernard, pregnant and expecting a baby in the summer, had been shot and killed five days before. Or, that Blanc, 22, her husband of nine months, would be accused in her slaying.
In the afternoon, Blanc unexpectedly showed up at his in-laws, wanting to get some of his wife’s clothing. Yvose Bernard went to shower and dress for the party, leaving the men alone.
Blanc followed Bernard, 68, into Martine’s old bedroom and shot him in his neck with a revolver. Bernard fell to the floor, struggling to breathe. Unable to look into his father-in-law’s eyes, Blanc also fired the gun into the middle of the older man’s back, an arrest report said.
Blanc left the dead man behind the locked bedroom door. He told his motherin-law that a Hispanic man appeared at the front door and asked to talk with her husband, who left the house.
She noticed Blanc was wearing black gloves.
An adult daughter, Joane Bernard, arrived and she and her mother prepared to drive to the party, assuming that Roosevelt Bernard would join them there.
Before the women and Blanc left the property, Blanc asked to go back inside the house to fetch food he had brought. Blanc returned the house keys to Yvose Bernard but left the rear door open.
As the women left, Blanc drove off too. The neighbor’s video recorded him returning 10 minutes later and parking at the vacant L-shaped grassy lot on South 29th Avenue. It is between homes and just 80
paces south of the Bernard’s property.
While wearing gloves, Blanc carried a backpack to the house and went inside and cleaned, police said.
About 40 minutes later, Blanc returned to his white Dodge Charger to get a large black garbage bag from his trunk, and spent more than an hour at the house.
Then video showed Blanc rolling a large city-issued trash can from the house and down the street to the field, pulling it though the grass and out of the video frame, police said.
Roosevelt Bernard’s body was left near bushes in the vacant lot. At about 6:16 p.m., Blanc drove away.
Yvose Bernard and her daughter returned home about 10 p.m., concerned that Roosevelt Bernard never arrived at the family party. They found his wallet, keys, cellphone and car at the house, and reported him missing to police.
Another of the Bernard’s four adult children, Ryan Bernard, a Miami Gardens police officer, told detectives that he thought he found blood in his sister’s old bedroom.
Hollywood police say there were possible blood stains on a door and wall and in grout in the tile floor.
At 4 a.m. Monday, Blanc came back to the empty lot. He poured gasoline on Bernard’s body and lit a pack of matches on him to set a fire and try to conceal the homicide, Hollywood police say.
The video showed a flash and big fire. A trash can with possible blood inside and on the front was found in a nearby alley.
Four hours later, Hollywood police and firefighters were called to a possible electrocution in the empty lot.
Responders found Bernard’s burned body partially concealed and lying in foliage. Nearby was a downed power line, but Florida Power & Light Co. and a city inspector said the wire wasn’t live and firefighters put out the fire.
A state fire marshal’s K-9 indicated an accelerant, and Bernard’s death became suspicious to law enforcement.
Hollywood detectives wanted to talk with Blanc and told him they would go to his home, but Blanc met them at the police department instead.
Asked to bring his wife, Blanc showed up alone. He said she had refused to come, that she had cellphone problems and that it would be difficult to speak with her.
Blanc denied returning to his in-laws’ home after the women left for the party, but the video evidence conflicted with his account, police said. He told investigators he wore the gloves because his cellphone became hot and he also had a skin condition.
Blanc refused to give police his address. He told detectives he was concerned for his safety, citing the man he said had appeared at the Bernard home before Roosevelt Bernard disappeared.
As the investigation progressed, detectives became concerned about Martine Bernard’s whereabouts. They requested a cellphone location history from her carrier and entered her into police notification systems as an endangered person.
They also began to follow Blanc. Detectives were there Monday and early Tuesday morning while Blanc was at his Fort Lauderdale apartment at 522 NE First Ave., in the Flagler Village neighborhood.
Hollywood police observed Blanc several times in the alley that runs behind his apartment building. He was seen struggling to push a large trash can that he left next to a dumpster, and then putting black garbage bags and a hand cart into the dumpster.
Because a large trash can was used to move Roosevelt Bernard’s body, they called Fort Lauderdale police.
Fort Lauderdale officers arrived just after Blanc put the hand cart into the dumpster, and found Martine Bernard’s desecrated remains inside the trash can, the report said.
Blanc allegedly confessed to fatally shooting his wife on June 4, after she had disrespected him. Fort Lauderdale detectives suspect Blanc had kept her body in his second-floor apartment for eight days before trying to throw away her remains.
He had tried to dismember the body so that it would be easier to dispose of, but was unable to do so.
At the Fort Lauderdale police station, Blanc allegedly confessed to both killings.
After an autopsy, the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office found Roosevelt Bernard died from a bullet that entered the back of his head beneath his ear and exited through his nose, an arrest report said. The cause of death for Martine Bernard has not been released.
The Broward Public Defender’s Office said Thursday it was representing Blanc, and declined to comment.
A judge denied bond for Blanc during a hearing Thursday afternoon for the latest arrest.
Assistant Public Defender Brian Reidy told him not to discuss the case with anyone but his attorneys. Asked if he understood, the newlywed who was educated at Catholic schools and had never been in trouble before, said in a strong voice, “Yes sir.”
Dressed in black-andwhite striped scrubs with the phrase “Max Custody Inmate” stenciled in red letters on the back, Blanc turned and walked back to his cell.
The Bernard family was planning two funerals.