Florida man found guilty of beating girlfriend to death with metal baseball bat

MARION COUNTY, Fla. (TCD) — A jury recently convicted a 36-year-old man of killing his girlfriend with a baseball bat outside a hotel three years ago.

On Wednesday, Dec. 13, the Florida State Attorney’s Office for the Fifth Judicial Circuit announced that a jury found Chad Anciaux guilty of a “vicious attack” that killed his then-girlfriend, Jennifer Powell, in November 2020. According to court records obtained by WKMG-TV, a judge sentenced Anciaux to life in prison after he was convicted of first-degree murder and resisting an officer with violence.

On Nov. 6, 2020, Marion County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to the Stage Stop Inn off Silver Springs Boulevard after a caller reported a man beating a woman with a baseball bat. At the scene, deputies found Powell “lying on the sidewalk with a large amount of blood near her head.”

Witnesses told investigators “Anciaux had chased the victim out of the hotel room,” and then he “struck her repeatedly with a metal baseball bat.” The state attorney’s office said officials reviewed surveillance from the hotel that verified the witnesses’ accounts.

After chasing Powell out of the hotel room, the state attorney’s office said Anciaux “brutally struck her nearly 20 times with a baseball bat.”

Powerll was transported to a hospital, where she died from her injuries on Nov. 16, 2020.

Anciaux was initially booked into the Marion County Jail on Nov. 7.

Prior to the attack, Anciaux pleaded guilty to a charge of failure to register as a sexual offender and was sentenced to prison, the state attorney’s office said.

Fifth Judicial Circuit State Attorney William Gladson said Anciaux will spend the rest of his life behind bars, and it’s “an appropriate sentence that reflects the severity of this heinous crime.”

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