When Jill Dornbush learned her nephew needed a place to live, she didn’t hesitate to let him travel from New York to stay with her in her apartment.
It didn’t matter that the Davie woman didn’t have a close relationship with her nephew, Alex Dornbush. She let him stay for several months in 1993.
“She put me up and helped me out,” said Alex Dornbush, 36, of Vancouver Island, Canada. “She’d help out anyone.”
Jill Dornbush’s nephew on Thursday remembered her as a “kind-hearted” woman whose frequent acts of good will made her a target.
Davie police arrested a homeless couple who Dornbush befriended, on charges they killed her because she refused to let them use her shower last Friday.
Delia Padron, 57, and Oscar Camejo, 55 — who was previously identified by Davie police as Lazard Falco, one of several aliases — were held without bail Thursday, a day after their arrests, on charges of first-degree murder.
After the slaying, the couple took her car and stole “some of her personal items, but no credit cards, nothing that would benefit them monetarily,” Davie police Sgt. David Choquette said.
Dornbush’s body hasn’t been found. The couple said they wrapped her body in a quilt and placed it in a Dumpster, an arrest report said. Choquette said a garbage company emptied the Dumpster on Saturday and burned its contents in an incinerator, meaning police may never recover her body.
Police, however, said they are still checking whether they can find her remains. They declined to release the name of the refuse company or the Dumpster’s location.
A native of New York, Dornbush moved to South Florida decades ago and shared her Davie apartment with her mother until her mother died several years ago, her family said. Dornbush was a longtime employee at a Davie McDonald’s, and one neighbor said that’s likely where she met Padron and Camejo.
Padron told police that she and Camejo walked to Jill Dornbush’s apartment last Friday to retrieve belongings they had left inside her home in Gateland Village, in the 3700 block of Northwest 78th Avenue, an arrest report said.
According to the police report, a neighbor told investigators that Dornbush was recently trying to distance herself from the couple because they had been bothering her for money, but she reluctantly let them inside her home anyway.
Padron said that Camejo grabbed Dornbush from behind and held her for about five to 10 minutes, the report said. Padron said that when Camejo released Dornbush, she fell to the ground and “she was dead.”
Padron said that she and Camejo then wrapped her body in a quilt, secured it with tape and carried the body out of the apartment. They placed it in the trunk of Dornbush’s light blue 2006 Honda Civic, the report said.
The couple then drove to a nearby plaza and placed Dornbush’s body in the Dumpster. Padron said that she and Camejo decided to keep Dornbush’s car so that they could drive to Hialeah, the report said.
When police questioned Camejo, they said he gave various accounts of what happened. He first said that Dornbush grabbed a knife when they were arguing and slipped and fell on the knife. Camejo later said that when he grabbed Dornbush in a chokehold, it caused her to stab herself in the neck, the report said.
The couple’s arrest Wednesday occurred a day after Davie police released photographs of them to the media. The couple entered a McDonald’s restaurant in Hialeah on Wednesday, and employees who recognized the couple told a Miami-Dade police officer. The officer detained Padron and Camejo.
Alex Dornbush said he has read reports about the arrests on the Internet, and said he was grateful that the media and the public helped with the case.
“Thank you very much,” he said.
Juan Ortega can be reached at jcortega@SunSentinel.com or 954-356-4701.