A Haitian man beat a gas station clerk to death with what appeared to be a hammer. The brazen daylight attack occurred outside a Florida gas station, where the perpetrator was initially bludgeoning a vehicle.
According to reports, illegal immigrant Rolbert Joacchin was smashing the windscreen of the 51-year-old clerk’s car around 7:20 a.m. in the parking lot of a Chevron gas station in Fort Myers. Surveillance footage captured him repeatedly whacking a black SUV until the clerk exited the nearby convenience store and shouted at him.
He quickly approached her and then struck her in the head with the hammer. The woman collapsed from the first hit, but Jacchin continued to beat her on the ground with his hammer.
He later fled the scene, leaving her there to die. She was found by a passerby, and emergency personnel were called to the site. When first responders arrived, they found the woman on the ground with a pool of blood around her head, according to court documents. She was also not breathing, and around 7:27 a.m., she was pronounced dead. While her identity was not revealed, it was reported that she is a mother of two teenage daughters.
According to the reports, Joacchin was seen armed with what was described as a blue-handled metal mallet in one hand and a knife in the other near the convenience store moments before the attack. On April 2, authorities arrested Joacchin when he was seen in the vicinity of Mango Street. An interpreter was present when the 40-year-old Haitian was read his rights. Joacchin confessed to killing the woman, and he was booked into Lee County Jail on the charges of second-degree murder and criminal damage to property over $1000.
Officials reported that Joacchin illegally entered the United States in August 2022. The Department of Homeland Security said Joacchin was allowed to roam free in the country under the Biden administration’s lax immigration policies, which granted him Temporary Protected Status (TPS). A judge ordered his removal from the country, but he was safe under the TPS, which ended in 2024.
DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis responded to the incident, saying that Biden’s “reckless immigration policies cost this woman her life”.
DHS further said that regardless of the outcome of this murder case, Joacchin will be deported.
