A 6-year-old Florida girl who was shot by her mother’s boyfriend died in the hospital after fighting for her life for about a day, police said.
Elizabelle Frenel died just before 11 p.m. on April 13 after getting shot on the night of April 12, according to the Haines City Police Department.
Ernst Cherizard, 38, was accused of shooting Elizabelle, 23-year-old Eli Junia Normil, and her aunt Nicole Guillume, 48, at Citrus Ridge Apartments.
Normil and Guillume were pronounced dead at the scene. Normil was Cherizard’s girlfriend and Elizabelle was Normil’s daughter, according to Fox 13.
“It’s disgusting to say the least. I can’t say what I’d like to say about him, but that’s why all I’m going to tell you is he’s a male. Not much of a man to shoot a child and two females, not much of a man there,” Chief Jim Elensky with the Haines City Police Department told the broadcaster.
NOW: Heartbreaking news this morning, as this little girl — as well as her mother & grandmother — are dead following a shooting in Haines City. @DebSouverainTV has a report on the search for the suspect, coming up @MyNews13 at 8 am. @HainesCityPD pic.twitter.com/IQdXKu7lrS
— Julie Gargotta (@juliegargotta) April 14, 2019
“No motivation, no motive at this point. [It’s still] early on in the investigation.
Normil’s brother Annel Normil said that he spoke to his sister several days before the shooting and she said she was doing well.
He said that he had met Cherizard a few times.
“He always talked to me like he cared for my sister and that he wanted to marry her one day,” Normil said. “He always seems cool to me. I don’t think he would have ever done something like that.”
Police said that Cherizard posted on Facebook the morning after the shooting and claimed that he and his girlfriend were struggling over the gun when “he lost it” and that he “heard voices in his head.”
Cherizard said that what he did was “pure evil” and apologized to his children.
On Sunday afternoon, Ernst Cherizard was transported from the Haines City Police Department to the Polk County Jail for the murder of three people at Citrus Ridge Apartments before 7:15 p.m. Friday night. pic.twitter.com/NWZgWdACb5
— Haines City Police Department (@HainesCityPD) April 15, 2019
“Daddy is so sorry with all my heart,” he wrote. “I can’t even explain what happened [because] I can’t believe this happened.”
The Haines City Police Department said in an update late Sunday that Cherizard turned himself in and was transported to the Polk County Jail.
The department shared footage of Cherizard being led from the police station in a white jumpsuit and handcuffs into a waiting police car to be taken to the jail.
CAPTURED: @HainesCityPD shared these photos of Ernst Cherizard in custody today. He’s accused of shooting and killing his girlfriend, her daughter and her aunt. pic.twitter.com/zGTs4j0SG3
— Grady Trimble (@gradywtsp) April 14, 2019
Writing on a GoFundMe fundraising page, a relative said: “What has happened is beyond comprehension and we are all still in shock. Understandably our family is struggling to cope, so I am stepping in to help with organizing the funerals of both Nicole and Jenny. Jenny leaves behind her twin babies who are being cared for by close family.”
“Jenny and her mother Nicole, who everyone in the neighborhood called Matunt (meaning Auntie) was and will always be greatly loved by countless family and friends. There is nothing that can ever explain the loss of a beautiful mother and child at such an early age,” the family member added.
“Jenny was highly intelligent, surprisingly funny, and always full of life busy with her daughter Bella and her twins. Her mother (Matunt) aka Nicole was a caring mother to us all and everyone she came across. She loved her family and friends and we will always love her too. Our precious Bella was such an innocent soul, who was smart, loving, and loved to laugh no matter what. They will always be missed and never forgotten.”
