A pair of sick thieves ransacked the home of a Florida couple killed in a helicopter crash in Kenya — making off with a pair of luxury cars and a sculpture valued at $500,000, according to police.
Geybert Alexander Garcia and Melany Perdomo are accused of breaking into the Coral Gables home of Henry Parra, 55, and Adam Hlavaty, 42 — who were two of the seven people who died in the mountainside crash while on safari last Wednesday.
Police said the burglary happened sometime between Thursday and Saturday, after the crash, WPLG reported.
Garcia, 40, and Perdomo, 24, “ransacked the residence and removed numerous items belonging to the decedent such as personal and business documents, jewelry, electronics, and artwork,” according to an arrest report.
They also stole the couple’s 2023 Land Rover and 2020 Porsche Taycan.
Pings from the stolen MacBook and Land Rover led police to the couple’s home in a nearby community where they lived together. Both stolen vehicles were parked outside of the residence, police said.
Inside the home, they recovered “several valuable pieces of artwork … including an art sculpture belonging to the victims and valued in excess of approximately $500,000,” it states.
They also found instruments used to produce or alter fraudulent documents and a Ford F-150 truck reported stolen out of Indian County, cops said.
The report mentions the helicopter crash, but doesn’t state whether or how investigators believe that the burglars became aware of the couple’s deaths before the break-in.
Garcia and Perdomo were each arrested on multiple felony charges, including burglary and grand theft auto.
In court on Wednesday, Garcia’s attorney, Paul Basile, presented a document purporting to be from one of the crash victims, granting Garcia permission to use the vehicle and be on the property.
“They would have never done so. They had other people. They have a live-in maid that comes to the house every day. There would be no need to do such a thing,” she told WPLG.
Lauren Bailey, a family friend of the victims who attended the hearing, said that’s impossible because they had been out of the country when the document was allegedly signed.
“The house was damaged; it was broken into. The door was destroyed. They ripped off the camera, which we’ve given the prosecutor the photos of that,” she continued.
“His family came from Indiana and came home to a house that had been broken into and their things stolen, and they don’t feel comfortable if you let this person go.”
Coral Gables Police Department Detective Wilfredo Diaz confirmed to the court that he believed the document was a fake.
The judge, who was also skeptical, ordered the couple be held without bond.
Parra and Hlavaty died in the tourist chopper alongside Telemundo executive José Suárez; the director general of Ecuador’s intelligence agency, Michele Sensi-Contugi, and his wife, Stephany Maria Hollihan Vasconez, a US dual citizen; millionaire food entrepreneur Roger Edward Duarte; and the pilot, Josh Outram.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
