KISSIMMEE, Fla. — A fire destroyed a Kissimmee CVS store and injured three people in April. Now, new court documents reveal the fire is being investigated as arson.
Federal prosecutors indicted Joao Marcelo Mendes-Minillo this month.
A surveillance photo included in an affidavit shows a man appearing to be Mendes-Minillo walking into CVS with a red gas container. The affidavit says video investigators obtained shows Mendes-Minillo emptying the red gasoline container into the aisle and onto products sitting on the shelves.
According to records spotted by Court Watch, just three minutes after the fire started, the suspect went across the street to another store to get burn cream. Investigators collected charred hair that apparently fell off of the suspect while he was in that store, and an employee initially saved that hair because the suspect’s behavior was suspicious.
“There were burn marks on [his] hands, and the person was in a panicked state,” one employee said, according to the affidavit. That employee said the man “smelled like gasoline” and “burned hair.”
Another employee noticed as the man touched his beard, “hair fell out into the business.”
It’s listed as evidence submitted for DNA testing at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ Forensic Science Laboratory.
“What’s uncommon in this situation is how it was obtained,” said Rajan Joshi, a criminal defense attorney not tied to this case.
“Are there questions about how he collected it, and also who all had access to it,” Channel 9 asked.
“Absolutely, and that’s something very crucial because the chain of custody is something that is going to be scrutinized. How he collected it, was it properly preserved, where he took it afterwards, how long he had it in his possession, those are all things that will be scrutinized thoroughly,” Joshi replied. “But then again, you know DNA is very reliable. Unless you have an identical twin, there’s not enough people in the world to say that that DNA could have belonged to someone else.”
But Joshi says prosecutors have much more solid evidence than the charred hair, including surveillance video.
Authorities also say they found a lighter on Mendes-Minillo when he was arrested on an unrelated out-of-county warrant that day.
Mendes-Minnillo is in custody at the Polk County Jail where he is on a hold by multiple agencies including ICE, FBI and U.S. Marshals Service.
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