Man Mistaken For Sex Offender Killed

Suspect Found Lying In Pond With Only Mouth Exposed

POSTED: Friday, May 14, 2010
UPDATED: 11:29 am EDT May 14, 2010

BITHLO, Fla. -- Two men have been arrested in connection to the slaying of a man inside his Bithlo trailer.

Deputies pulled Robert Pascale from a wooded area Thursday evening near the Fifth Avenue trailer where Hugh Edwards, 79, was found dead on Wednesday.

Investigators said Pascale was found by a bloodhound in a muddy pond with only his face exposed for air.

Pascale is at the Orange County Jail charged with first-degree murder. He told WKMG-TV that he mistakenly beat the wrong man.

When reporters asked him if he thought his alleged victim was a sex offender, he replied, "I thought he was, and the only thing running through my mind is what my uncle did to me." Pascale continued, "I hit him with a bat twice."

A woman told deputies she was drinking at a trailer on Fifth Avenue with some acquaintances Tuesday night when one of Pascale's friends, Michael Garay, asked her what she would do if a sex offender lived next door. The woman told deputies she said, "I would kill him."

The woman told deputies that Pascale, 20, and Garay, 32, then went into a neighbor's trailer and she heard thumping sounds. She said the men then got in her car and drove a block away to get rid of a baseball bat.

Although Edwards had a similar name and age as a registered sex offender, sheriff's officials said Edwards had absolutely no criminal record and was not a registered sex offender.

Police arrested Garay on Thursday and charged him with accessory after the fact in a first-degree murder. Deputies said he told them he remained at the gate in front of the victim's trailer while Pascale went in with a baseball bat. Garay said he watched Pascale later discard his bloody clothes.

According to the arrest affidavit, there were signs of a struggle in Edwards' trailer that indicated he was killed.

Department of Corrections records show that Pascale was released from the Orange County Jail in March after serving only 1 year rather than his original two-and-a-half-year sentence for grand theft, burglary, armed robbery, and battery on a corrections officer.

From: http://www.news4jax.com/news/23553940/detail.html#