About 8 a.m. Sunday, Padgett allegedly killed 53-year-old Angelo De Nardo of San Diego and set his body on fire in an open area off the 2700 block of Morena Boulevard in Bay Park, according to police.
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Police arrested a suspect in San Diego on Thursday in connection with a series of vicious attacks against the city’s homeless that left two people dead and two critically injured.
The four recent attacks happened in a four-day period last week; the first three happened last Sunday and Monday when two men were beaten and another set on fire; then, last Wednesday, a man was found across the street from the federal courthouse on fire. Before Padgett was arrested, a surveillance photo was released showing a man leaving a convenience store after buying a gasoline can hours before the first homeless victim was set on fire.
About 5 a.m. Wednesday, a 23-year-old man was gravely injured in the area of Broadway and State Street, and a towel he was sleeping under was doused with a flammable liquid and set ablaze, according to police.
Shortly before 5 a.m. on Independence Day, transient Manuel Mason, 61, was found bleeding from wounds to his upper body near the Valley View Casino Center in the Midway district. He was hospitalized in critical condition but was expected to survive.
As Padgett was taken to the San Diego jail Thursday evening in the back of a police auto, he told an ABC affiliate KGTV reporter outside the vehicle window, “I’m innocent”. He was attacked at an apartment complex downtown, police said. His attacker put a burning cloth on him and fled.
A man accused of a spate of deadly attacks on San Diego homeless men who were asleep and in some cases set on fire committed a almost identical crime six years ago. The victim, whose name has not been released, was hospitalized in grave condition and had a poor prognosis for survival, officials said.
Padgett committed a almost identical crime six years ago, admitting to setting a man on fire and leaving him badly burned in a supermarket parking lot in the San Diego suburb of National City.
He said in a note to a judge at the time that he was drunk and high on drugs when he did it and had only meant to scare the victim, who he knew.
In the note, Padgett also calls himself a “homeless citizen”, asks Jesus to forgive his sins and expresses remorse for the victim, saying, “I’ll never be so stupid again”.
Ron Shatto normally sleeps under a tarp stretched over two shopping carts.
Many heeded the advice of homeless advocates to sleep in groups and in populated, lighted areas.
Authorities have declined to disclose the cause or causes of the targeted men’s non-fire-related injuries, though Nisleit said all four victims had suffered significant trauma to their upper bodies. Handley had moved closer to other tents after the killings began.
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The attacks left San Diego’s homeless population on edge.
