Court records allege suspects had detailed plan to rob woman
SAN JOSE >> The brutal killing of Floavis “Miss Flo” Douglas during a home-invasion robbery last fall was not just a tragic chance encounter with hasty and impulsive intruders, as many previously thought.
Investigators and prosecutors contend it was the end result of a scheme concocted by a neighbor who carefully watched Douglas and plotted how he and two friends would ransack the home of the 88-year-old woman who lived as a community
matriarch in the East San Jose neighborhood where the suspects also lived.
But for all of their planning, they didn’t expect Douglas to be home the night they decided to carry out the plot, according to court documents.
Three men believed to be the alleged masterminds are now in jail, two of them on murder charges. Their crime also came to ensnare three women in their lives: two girlfriends and a mother, who also are facing charges in connection with the killing.
“It resonates with anybody,” deputy district attorney Lance Daugherty said. “You see Ms. Douglas and hear what a treasured individual she was. It’s a tragedy to family, and to friends, and to the community.”
Court documents unsealed Wednesday outline detailed allegations of how 19-year-old murder defendants Zachary Omar Cuen and Johnny Raymond Brown Jr. descended on Douglas’ home under the guidance of Douglas’ neighbor, Willie King, who is also 19 years old.
Jennifer Hernandez Jimenez and Perla Arreola, defendants to felony accessory charges in participating in an alleged coverup of the crime, are 19 and the girlfriends of Cuen and Brown respectively.
Sinica Santos, Brown’s 39-year-old mother, is facing a felony accessory charge for harboring her wanted son.
The picture of the thinly sketched robbery plot that ended the life of Miss Flo, a retired salon owner and faithful church servant, surfaced Wednesday after Brown was arraigned on charges of murder, robbery, elder abuse and burglary.
Brown, clad in a red jumpsuit reserved for highsecurity inmates, briefly appeared in a San Jose courtroom before being denied bail and ordered back to the Santa Clara County Main Jail. He was arrested Tuesday alongside his mother at an unspecified San Jose location by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s deputies.
The biggest investigative blow against Brown came via a purported confession to the crime he gave to his live-in girlfriend, Arreola, who then relayed it to Jimenez, according to court documents. It is unclear who offered the account to detectives, but Brown purportedly told Arreola that they did not expect to run into Douglas during the break-in.
Santos was booked into the Elmwood women’s jail where she is being held on $500,000 bail.
Also Wednesday, authorities revealed the previously unannounced arrest of King, who was booked into jail July 18 and is being held on $400,000 bail.
Jimenez and Arreola were arrested in March and May, respectively, on allegations they helped conceal the crime with acts that include disposing of bloody clothing.
Before his arraignment Wednesday, Brown briefly spoke with reporters in a jailhouse interview, and contended that he was being framed.
“I’m being arrested for something I did not do,” Brown told KTVU.
According to court documents produced by the Sheriff’s Office and Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, King used his position as Douglas’ across-the-street neighbor to chronicle in extensive detail her comings and goings from the home. Investigators contend that Cuen, who was living in King’s parked car on North Cragmont Avenue, King, Brown, Jimenez and Arreola all discussed or heard about a plan to burglarize Douglas’ home sometime during the night of Sept. 11.
Douglas, who initially survived the encounter, told investigators that in the early morning hours of Sept. 12, two men entered her home, demanded money and threatened to kill her. When she told the intruders she did not have any money, they punched and kicked her, knocking her to the floor, and continued to land blows on her. They left and then returned to make the same demands and reportedly kicked her several more times.
After ransacking the home, the men took off in Douglas’ car but abandoned it down the street from her home. Cuen was arrested two days later — largely on the basis of a fingerprint found at Douglas’ home. He was also recorded on surveillance video approaching the home.
New details revealed by investigators Wednesday show that at the same time, several calls were made from King’s landline phone to Brown’s cellphone.
Douglas died from her injuries Oct. 8. Jimenez and Arreola were visited by Cuen in the immediate wake of the robbery and assault on Douglas.