Peter Serge Avsenew, the man arrested
in connection to the murders of gay couple Kevin Mark Powell and
Stephen Duane Adams, knew his victims. Powell and Adams were found
murdered in their Wilton Manors home on the day after Christmas.
Avsenew, 26, was collared on Tuesday
driving Powell's black 2003 Saturn Vue near Dundee, Florida.
He's being held at the the Polk County
Sheriff's Office and is expected to be extradited to Broward County
soon.
“It was not a random act or a break
in,” Wilton Manors police Sergeant Chuck Howard told gay weekly
South
Florida Gay News. “The victims knew the accused
assailant.”
Police entered the couple's home at the
request of Adams' sister who grew concerned when her brother was a
no-show at a family gathering.
Powell had not fully recovered from a
double-organ transplant to cure his diabetes six months ago.
The couple met at a Cleveland gay pride
parade 29 years earlier.
“They fell in love, and they've been
together ever since,” Powell's brother, Shannon Kicklighter, told
the Miami Herald.
Police said they
are investigating how the men are connected. But Adams, a registered
nurse, and Powell, an interior decorator, moved to Wilton Manors –
which includes a large gay population – earlier this year. They
had previously lived in Hollywood, where the six-foot-one Avsenew
currently resides.
In his booking
stats Avsenew's weight is listed at a paltry 150 pounds. But in a
shirtless photo posted last June on his Facebook profile he appears
healthy and strong.
State records show
a checkered past for the young man who has previously been taken into
custody more than a dozen times since 2003, the year he graduated
from high school.