Three men were arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, after they allegedly beat a man to death so brutally that detectives recommended his family not see his body.
The Phoenix Police Department announced the arrest Saturday. A passerby called police shortly before 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 26 after finding a body at Mountain View Park. The victim, later identified as 30-year-old Bernardo Pantaleon, was suffering from “significant bodily trauma,” police said in a press release.
After working “relentlessly” on the case, detectives identified three suspects: Leonardo Santiago and Manuel Carrasco Calderon, both 21, and Jose Rodriguez, 20. All three men admitted to killing Pantaleon in interviews with detectives, cops said.
Pantaleon’s family told local CBS affiliate KTVK that the crime could be a hate crime as he was gay. His family said he was found naked, beaten and tortured. Detectives recommended the family not see the body because he was in such bad shape, the TV station reported. The Phoenix Police Department did not confirm these details when asked by Law&Crime.
“We don’t understand,” his cousin Gasdeli Pantaleon said. “We are hurt. We’re lost. When you lose someone from a natural cause, you’re like, oh, he had a heart attack, but when you lose someone and some coward took his life, then you’re sitting there like, why? Who? Why did they go after him? Why?”
The details of his death are heartbreaking, she said.
“It’s going to be so devastating at a funeral home with a closed casket of someone you love so much and you can’t be near them and hug him or touch him or put a flower inside for him,” Gasdeli Pantaleon said.
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