Inset: Lemar Beasley (Putnam County Sheriff”s Office). Background: Dollar General in Crescent City, Florida (Google Maps).
Authorities in Florida arrested a 54-year-old man who stabbed a woman to death in the parking lot of a Dollar General for no apparent reason.
Lemar Beasley stands accused of first-degree murder in the death of 36-year-old Cheyenne Kastens, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post.
Deputies say both Beasley and Kastens were at the Dollar General in Crescent City on Friday afternoon but did not appear to have an interaction inside the store, nor did they know each other beforehand. Kastens was near her car when Beasley allegedly attacked her with a knife and stabbed her repeatedly.
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Cops arrived to the scene and performed CPR until paramedics rushed her to the hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead. Beasley fled after the attack, setting off a 24-hour manhunt, deputies said. Detectives identified Beasley as the suspect and arrested him in the camper where he was living on a property on Huntington Shortcut Road, about 7 miles away from the Dollar General.
A knife that was possibly used in the attack was recovered. Beasley has an “extensive criminal history” dating back some three decades. He also is a registered sex offender and was just released from prison in July after serving for failing to register as a sex offender.
“Our prayers and deepest condolences are to the family and friends of Cheyenne Kastens,” Sheriff H.D. “Gator” DeLoach said in a statement. “While I cannot take away their pain and sorrow while grieving the loss of a loved one, my promise to her family and our south Putnam community is that we will do everything to make sure this refuse of human garbage spends the rest of his life confined in a cell away from society and dies in prison. There is no reason for someone to lose their life for just going about their day.”
Beasley is in the Putnam County Jail without bond.
