Miami – A Miami registered sex offender is under arrest for setting fire to a trailer which was home to a lesbian couple and their eight children.
Norma Beteta Fonseca, her partner, Latanya Dinsy, and her children were awakened and pulled from their beds by neighbors when they spotted smoke coming from the trailer early morning March 29, according to the Miami Herald, which reported reports the trailer had no working smoke detectors or fire warning system.
Braulio Valenzuela-Villanueva, 73, did not confess to setting the fire but a neighbor’s security camera caught him setting ablaze a mattress leaning up around the couple’s home at 4:25 a.m. The arrest record states he despised the two women because they are lesbians and “every time he saw them kissing he felt a deep repugnance, and in his opinion they did not deserve to have children.”
Police said the couple and Valenzuela-Villanueva had an “ongoing feud” and had been involved in several “heated arguments”, although Fonseca denies this.
“The reason they say is because I’m a lesbian. But this is not an excuse for me. I never had a problem with him,” Fonseca told the Miami Herald. “I don’t understand. This is crazy. I don’t understand why.”
Valenzuela-Villanueva is being charged with attempted murder, arson and a hate crime. Florida Department of Law Enforcement records show Valenzuela-Villanueva has had numerous run-ins with the law. His March 31 arrest was at least his 10th since 1994 and his record includes charges for burglary, grand theft and child molestation.
While the trailer was completely destroyed, no one was injured from the fire. Valenzuela-Villanueva remains at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center and is being held on $230,000 bond.
