He booked flights to Dominican Republic days after his wife died. He’s now charged with murder

The husband of a woman who was found severely injured outside the couple’s apartment on Labor Day has been charged with killing her.

Just after 4:30 a.m. on Labor Day, deputies responding to a 911 call found Maria De Jesus lying on a grassy area in the Centre Court apartment complex, 4255 52nd Place W., in only her underwear. She was bleeding and crying out, “I’m hurt, I’m hurt.”

De Jesus died five days later at Blake Medical Center as a result of her injuries.

Nearly seven weeks later, on Sunday, detectives charged her husband. Nelson Navarro, with murder.

On Monday, Navarro appeared before Circuit Judge Teresa Dees for his first appearance hearing. He spoke briefly with the aid of a Spanish translator only to say he already had attorney appointed to represent him.

Navarro was ordered held without bond.

Navarro had already booked flights to go to the Dominican Republic at the time of his arrest in Georgia, Assistant State Attorney Suzanne O’Donnell said in court.

Navarro had not previously been charged with murder because detectives were awaiting results from the medical examiner’s office to rule homicide as the manner of his wife’s death, according to the sheriff’s office. Assistant Public Defender Anne Hunter questioned the timing of the charges in court on Monday, stating that the charges were based on information law enforcement had for weeks.

De Jesus previously reported to deputies that her husband had threatened to kill her while holding a knife to her neck in February 2015 when she told him she was planning on moving out.

On the day his wife died, Navarro was discovered to be hiding out in Dalton, Ga., at the home of relatives. He fled Florida in a friend’s pickup truck and was arrested by local law enforcement in Georgia and charged with grand theft of a motor vehicle.

Evidence linking Navarro to the crimes was found when investigators searched his vehicle and the one he used to flee, according to the sheriff’s office. When questioned by detectives, Navarro’s relatives in Georgia said that he had arrived unexpectedly in the middle of the night and had told them, “he was there because he hurt Maria really bad and left her laying there,” according to the arrest warrant affidavit.

Among the evidence collected from Navarro’s white 2016 Chevrolet Silverado were latent fingerprints, a metal baseball bat, possible DNA swabs, blood swabs and a flash drive, according to a search warrant inventory. From inside the couple’s home, investigators took another bat and the refrigerator’s door handle which had blood on it.

During a second search of the grassy area where De Jesus was found, a large pry or wrecking bar was found about 60 feet from where she had been lying and taken as potential evidence in the case. A butcher’s knife about 30 feet from where she had been lying had already been collected on the morning De Jesus was found.

Neighbors in Centre Court heard the commotion coming from the couple’s apartment more than two-and-a-half hours before De Jesus was found. One neighbor saw Navarro packing up his belongings in a haste as a woman was heard crying out in pain in a grassy area nearby. Within moments he saw Navarro speed off, the witness told detectives.

Neighbors knew who Navarro was because he had been the maintenance man for the apartment complex where the couple had lived for years.

The couple’s three children, ages 4, 6 and 14, were sleeping over at a friend’s home on the night their mother was beaten. Their 14-year-old daughter implied her father was to blame when deputies came to check on their welfare and told her that her mother had been hurt.

“I want him out of the house,” the girl told deputies.

This story was originally published October 22, 2018 at 12:52 PM.