Florida man arrested in connection with 4 killings, abduction of boy

A 28-year-old Florida man was arrested at a Tampa-area hotel and is being held as a person of interest in connection with a grisly quadruple slaying and the abduction of a 4-year-old child who may be his son, police officials said Friday.

Adam Matos was captured at the Floridan Palace Hotel in Tampa on Friday after police used a ruse to lure him out of his hotel room, said Eddie Daniels Jr., public information officer for the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office.

Matos is considered a person of interest in the killings of four people whose bodies were found decomposing on Thursday outside a home in Hudson, Fla., a coastal town in the western part of the state roughly 50 miles north of Tampa, Daniels said.

Police also rescued 4-year-old Ismael Santisteban from the hotel room, according to Daniels. The child, who was not injured, was the subject of an Amber Alert issued earlier this week after police discovered the grisly scene in Hudson.

Court documents from Pennsylvania list Matos as Ismael’s father, but police are awaiting the results of DNA tests to confirm that, Daniels said.

Matos will appear in court Saturday, and police are not searching for any other suspects in the slayings, but he has yet to be charged with the homicides.

When he was taken into custody on Friday, Matos denied killing anyone and said he took Ismael because he is the boy’s father, according to a report in the Tampa Bay Times.

“I love my son and I hope that he’s safe right now,” Matos said, according to the newspaper report.

Matos is currently being held on an aggravated assault charge filed by his girlfriend, who lives at the same address where the killings took place, according to Daniels. Matos is accused of pressing a knife against his girlfriend’s neck on Aug. 28, but police were unable to locate him afterward.

Officers returned to the Hudson home Thursday, when a relative asked police to conduct a welfare check, Daniels said. Upon arrival, officers found blood throughout the house and a foul smell in the air, according to Daniels.

Police searched the area and discovered four bodies in varying states of decomposition less than a mile from the residence, Daniels said. The bodies belonged to two men and two women, though authorities have not released their identities or determined how they died.

Investigators believe the victims had been dead “for at least a day or two,” said Daniels, who declined to say if the woman who filed the assault claim against Matos was one of the victims.

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