OCALA, Fla. – A man arrested for running around a day care nude is now charged with the murder of a 77-year-old woman, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
The sheriff’s office said 31-year Nicholas James Trench faces charges fo second-degree murder, first-degree arson and abuse of a dead body.
Recommended Videos
Deputies said they responded to a well-being check at a home in the 10600 block of SW 75th Terrace on March 26 and crews found a fire was set in the home.
[TRENDING: DeSantis to unemployed: Look for a job | Cops: Fla. woman hurls Whopper, racial slurs | Video: SpaceX Starship finally sticks landing]
Law enforcement officers said once the fire was put out they found the body of 77-year-old Alice Trench. The sheriff’s office said the victim’s body was decapitated and her left arm was removed.
Nicholas Trench was arrested while at a nearby day care, according to the sheriff’s office. The day care is about 1,600 feet from the home and records show employees had to move children inside after Nicholas Trench broke a fence to get on the property.
When deputies took him into custody, he said he could not remember anything before the arrest, according to the sheriff’s office.
Surveillance footage at the home shows Nicholas Trench retrieving a handsaw, disposing of a garbage bag full of bloody clothing and he was also caught starting a fire.
The Medical Examiner’s Office said Alice Trench’s cause of death was strangulation and suffocation with contributory factors of blunt force trauma.
Deputies said Nicholas Trench was the only person at the home with Alice Trench at the time of her murder.
Before this arrest, he was already facing charges of indecent exposure, criminal mischief, resisting arrest, false ID to law enforcement and violation of probation. Court records show in 2020 he faced a domestic battery by strangulation charge.
Records show Nicholas Trench told his mother during a phone call from jail he was high on March 26 and he had been up for days.
He is being held at the Marion County Jail without bond.