University of Alabama student, her friend, and dog he was pet-sitting found shot dead inside home
A University of Alabama student, her friend and a dog were found dead inside the home they were pet-sitting — after the homeowner saw a suspicious person in her yard on her security cameras.Jazmine Alexis Bates, 22, and her pal Jose Felix Alvarez-Duenas, 31, were allegedly killed by De’Kendrick Crawford, 24, in Brookwood, Ala., on Monday, WIAT reported. Their bodies were found after cops swooped on the home — located east of Tuscaloosa — to carry out a welfare check when Alvarez-Duenas, a restaurant worker, hadn’t answered his phone calls or text messages.Alvarez-Duenas, a single dad to three children, had been looking after a colleague’s dog as she was out of the US, and she became concerned when she hadn’t heard from the pet sitter.
The woman spotted a suspect on her back porch when she checked her home security cameras, raising her suspicions.Brookville police discovered Bates, Alvarez-Duenas and the pooch’s bodies when they arrived at the home.“Immediately upon opening the front door, there was a deceased male lying on the floor that was identified as the person that was house-sitting for her,” Jack Kennedy, of the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit, told reporters Tuesday, according to the outlet.
Investigators combed through the home, where they found Chicago-native Bates – who worked with Alvarez-Duenas at the restaurant Buffalo Phil’s Wings.“Upon clearing the residence, they were able to find a second deceased individual, a female,” Kennedy said. “She was in the back bedroom in a closet.” Bates, a business administration and management student, was just five months away from graduating.Crawford bolted to a relative’s apartment in Northport – around 22 miles from Brookwood – and was arrested 10 hours after the restaurant staffers’ bodies were found.Crawford was caught hiding in the home’s attic. “After four hours of tactical operations including drones, tear gas, walls and doors being breached and attics being se...