Overview
- Kersten Moses Francilus, 25, who appeared in a Martin County courtroom Friday, is being held without bond on a first-degree premeditated murder charge.
- Deputies say neighbors in Stuart’s Southwood community called about a suspicious man going door to door asking about a “new bank,” and minutes later a deputy arrived to find him stabbing a woman in her 70s.
- Prosecutors said he stabbed her roughly 16 times, a civilian tried to pull him off, and she died shortly after at a local hospital.
- Investigators have found no link between Francilus and the victim or a clear motive, and they say he described her only by saying “she was Jewish.”
- The weapon was a steak knife believed to have come from his home, and the killing has shaken residents in an area already unnerved by other recent random attacks.