Florida man drowns 19-month-old son and himself after fight with toddler's mother in apparent murder-suicide
ORLANDO, FLORIDA: A Florida father drowned his toddler son in a lake and then returned to the same spot and killed himself as well, police said. Miguel Leonardo-Hernandez, 28, and his 19-month-old son Kevin Leonardo-Cisnero were found dead in Lake George in southeastern Orlando late last Thursday, August 27, a spokesman for the Orlando Police Department revealed on Monday.
The gruesome deaths came to light after police were sent to the lake near the Barber Park Apartments after getting reports of a suspicious incident, according to the New York Post. Firefighters also responded to the scene and the two bodies were uncovered shortly after 7:45 pm.
Investigators said Hernandez, of Orlando, had an ongoing domestic dispute with the child's mother and drowned the toddler, their son, after a fight on August 27. He then returned to the spot and drowned himself as well. He was reportedly caught on video surveillance before he drowned his son, but police have yet to say how much time passed between Kevin's death and his father's return to the lake.
"There were a lot of arguments between the couple," Orlando police spokeswoman Heidi Rodriguez revealed. "It wasn’t long after [that he drowned the toddler]."
Their deaths have been ruled as a murder-suicide and investigators are not looking for anyone else in connection to the two deaths, Rodriguez said.
MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) had previously reported on a similar heartbreaking case from Lone Tree, Colorado, where a father killed his son, who he shared with his ex, in an apparent murder-suicide. Police had responded to an apartment in the city for a welfare check and "found an adult male and a juvenile male deceased inside the apartment."
The bodies were later identified by the coroner's department as 48-year-old Anthony Tesoriero and his 10-year-old son, Ty. Multiple news outlets reported that both of them had been shot dead.
Jing Tesoriero, Anthony's ex-wife and Ty's mother, said she had tried to save her son on multiple occasions and had warned that Anthony would harm him but authorities were not able to help her. She alerted police, the court systems and child welfare services more than once saying Anthony had violated the terms of their custody agreement by brainwashing his son against her and keeping him longer than he was legally allowed to.
"There were so many agencies that were involved, so many," she told TheDenverChannel. "I begged, talked to, tried to convince everybody to do something.”
The murder-suicide came less than 24 hours after the family attended a custody hearing where the judge had reportedly planned to award the mother full custody of the 10-year-old. However, soon after the hearing, she received an email from her ex-husband that read: "By the time you finish reading this, Ty will be moments away from joining me in the afterlife."
By the time she reached his apartment, he had fatally shot Ty and himself. "I’m heartbroken," the mother had said. "I don’t even know the words. I’m feeling angry, upset, regrets."