Man Charged In Quadruple Murder Bought Shovel For Burial With Victim's Credit Card, Police Say

In this photo released by the Tampa Police Department, Adam Matos appears in a booking mug after his arrest Friday, Sept. 5, 2014 in Tampa, Fla. Matos, 28, is suspected in the killings of four people whose bodies were found stacked on the ground and decomposing in a neighborhood some 45 miles away. (AP Photo/Tampa Police Department)

He used one of his victim’s credit cards to buy the shovel with which he buried her. At least that what police are alleging of 28-year-old Adam Matos, the Florida man accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend, her parents and her new boyfriend.

Matos was charged with four counts of first-degree murder on Monday, and the details in court documents tell a gruesome story.

According to the arrest report filed with the court by the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office, Matos shot Megan Brown, 27, with whom he had a 4-year-old autistic child named Ismael, in the head. Her father, Gregory, 52, was killed by a gunshot wound to the torso.

The bodies of Megan’s mother, Margaret, also 52, and current boyfriend, 37-year-old Nicholas Leonard, bore the sign of blunt force head injuries.

Margaret Brown was found still wearing an apron from the Wawa convenience store where she worked, with her hands bound and a plastic bag over her face.

More On This...

It was Margaret’s credit card, police claim, that Matos used to buy the shovel at a Walmart in Hudson, Fla., and to buy pizzas for Ismael, whom he cared for after the murders.

The Browns owned six dogs, the Tampa Bay Times reported, that Matos sold for $50 apiece online.

According to the New York Daily News, Matos lived with the Browns since July, when he moved to Florida from Pennsylvania, violating his probation agreement from an aggravated assault case.

Police claim that Matos confronted Megan about Leonard on Aug. 28, holding a knife to her throat, running away only because their son woke up.

“That’s not what happened,” Matos told the Times in a jailhouse interview last week. “We just had a disagreement about something. [She] pretty much told me to leave, and I left.”

Asked what the disagreement had been about, Matos answered, “Something dumb, probably.”

Throughout the portion of the interview posted by the paper, Matos remained calm.

The victim's bodies were found on Sept. 4, after a deputy, who went to the Brown’s house after a relative called the Sheriff's office, found a shell casing in the driveway and noticed birds circling near the house. Matos was arrested in the early hours of the morning on Sept. 5 at a hotel in downtown Tampa, where he was staying with Ismael, who is now in the care of relatives.

When the Times asked Matos about what the police had told him about the murders when they first interrogated him, he answered, “They told me all this stuff happened. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know how to react... This was all new.”