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HUDSON, Fla. (AP) — Tampa Bay area authorities on Monday charged a man with four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his ex-girlfriend, her parents and her new boyfriend.
The Pasco County Sheriff's Office charged 28-year-old Adam Matos late Monday afternoon. Detectives say the victims were killed around Aug. 28.
Officials went to the Hudson home Sept. 4 at the request of a concerned family member. Deputies found the four bodies piled atop each other in an open field about a mile from the home. The victims had apparently lain unseen for several days.
An arrest report says Matos took his 4-year-old son from the home after the killings. He and the unharmed boy were found at a Tampa hotel on Sept. 4 after a manhunt. Authorities charged Matos with an unrelated count of aggravated assault stemming from an earlier incident with his girlfriend.
Matos, who has been in custody since Sept. 4, is being held without bail at the Pasco County Jail.
According to the arrest report, Pasco County deputies had gone to the waterfront home on Aug. 28, when Megan Brown — Matos' estranged girlfriend — called authorities because Matos allegedly held her at knifepoint. Officials said Matos fled the residence before detectives arrived.
Officials discovered that Matos made more than 200 calls to Brown and her family in an eight-hour span on Aug. 28.
The victims were Brown, her parents, Margaret and Greg Brown, both 52; and another man, Nicholas Leonard, who was 37.
On Aug. 29, officials said Matos sold several items on Craigslist from the Browns' home, including the couple's two dogs. One of the people who bought the dogs said he smelled a foul odor in the home.
The Brown family recently lived in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, as did Matos, who denied any involvement in the killings to reporters shortly after authorities caught up with him and the boy at the hotel. Matos had a lengthy criminal history in Pennsylvania, authorities said, and was charged in that state Monday with being a fugitive from justice, according to court records. He had been on probation for retail theft in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
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