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Husband Arrested After Wife's Remains Found in Suitcases along Florida Beach
The remains of 80-year-old Aydil Barbosa Fontes were found in suitcases along the Intracoastal Waterway and her husband, William Lowe, is in custody.
A 78-year-old Florida man, was arrested on Wednesday for the grim murder and dismemberment with a chainsaw of his elderly wife in the wealthy waterfront community of Delray Beach.
William Lowe has been charged with first-degree murder and abuse of a dead body in the death of Aydil Barbosa Fontes.
Fontes, 80, was shot in the head, and her dismembered body was stuffed into three suitcases and one tote bag tied with a belt, all of which were found in or near the Intracoastal Waterway, according to a police report obtained by BocaNewsNow.com.
The gruesome discovery happened on July 21, when police received a 911 call about a suitcase with a human foot protruding from it on the west side of the Intracoastal Waterway. When detectives arrived, they discovered human legs inside and an airline sticker on the bag allegedly with Fontes' name on it. Just an hour later, a second call alerted police to a suitcase abandoned on the rocks of the waterway. Inside was a female torso ending just below the stomach area, but the head and hands were missing. A third suitcase turned up on the east side of the Intracoastal Waterway containing a pelvis, according to the police report. All the suitcases had been loaded down with small landscaping rocks, presumably to sink the bags and hide the evidence.
The next day, on July 22, Delray Beach detectives and the Coast Guard jumped into action to search the Intracoastal Waterway for the missing remains. They found a tote bag containing a human head with a single gunshot wound behind the ear. According to a police report, Fontes’ death was declared a homicide, and the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head.
According to the police report, two witnesses told detectives that they saw the suspect Lowe five or six times over a three-day period before July 21 around the Intracoastal Waterway, near where a suitcase had been found. They said he appeared nervous and just stared at the water. When the witnesses asked Lowe what he was looking at, he told them he was “waiting for the big boat to come into the harbor.” The witnesses then reportedly told Lowe that large boats don’t come into the harbor because it’s too shallow, and he reportedly walked to his gold sedan and drove off.
Police also spoke with three workers in the area who say they saw Lowe looking at the suitcase in the water on July 21 and saying, “Sh–t” before leaving in his car.
According to the police report, on July 31, detectives questioned Lowe, who claimed his wife had been in Brazil for about three weeks. After showing him photos of the suitcases, he denied having ever seen them and said he didn’t know why his wife’s name would be on an airport sticker on one of the suitcases, the report stated.
That same day, detectives executed a search warrant. Lowe allegedly returned to his apartment and tried to climb through a rear window, but police stopped him. The police report describes blood-spattered walls in nearly every room and drag marks in the hallway, living room, and primary bathroom. The police allegedly found a 9mm handgun in the desk drawer of the spare bedroom and copious amounts of blood in several rooms. On August 2, detectives searched the suspect’s storage unit and allegedly found a bloodied chainsaw and cooler. Lowe is being held without bond. The motive for the alleged murder of his wife of 15 years remains a mystery.
