The St. Cloud Police Department has shed new light on a deadly shooting incident in east St. Cloud that left the mother of two children dead and the father in jail.
Jose Manuel Otero-Fontanez, 48, is being held in the Osceola County Jail no bond, on charges of first-degree murder and murder while engaged in resisting arrest in the Saturday evening incident on Nottel Drive in the Hanover Lakes subdivision. He made an initial appearance in front of a judge Monday.
The department released the charging affidavit and police body cameras this week that told of a courageous 911 call made by one of the children living in the home, who safely took his sibling to a neighbor’s home when the shots rang out.
According to the police report, just before 6:40 p.m. the boy called 911 and stated his father shot his mother, then headed to a neighbor’s house, according to dispatchers. The child said he thought three or four shots were fired from a gun kept in a safe in the home. The caller said his father accused his mother of cheated on him, “Which she wasn’t,” the young caller told the dispatcher. “My dad and my mom have been fighting, my mom started screaming and my dad shot her.
A number of units gathered two houses away and made a plan to enter the home and save the victim, whom they believed to still be alive at the time.
An officer attempting to enter through the quarter-open front door was shot at, forcing him to take a defensive position.
“At the time, the sound of the gunshot and pressure wave led me to believe I could have been shot,” the responding officer said in the report.
Officers took cover behind neighboring homes and police vehicles. Minutes later another officer flew a drone to the front door, which also took fire. Officers would later find bullet holes in a fence across the street.
Soon after that exchange, officers established communication with the suspect by cell phone, and the suspect eventually exited the home and was taken into custody without incident. Units then searched the home and found several spent handgun cartridges on the floor on the way to an upstairs bathroom, where the deceased female was found.
Forensic officials spent Saturday night and Sunday morning processing the crime scene. Police have yet to identify the victim.
“The crime that occurred here (Saturday) is tragic and senseless,” Chief Douglas Goerke said, in a release. “Our hearts go out to the children who lost their parents here. We will be working with them to get the resources they will need to cope with what happened here.”
