Police in Miami Beach, Florida, have arrested a suspect accused of beating a transgender woman to death outside the Miami City Ballet building.
Jail records show that the individual, identified in a police report as 53-year-old Gregory Gibert, is now facing a second-degree murder charge and was out on probation on charges including armed robbery and aggravated assault at the time of the alleged killing early Tuesday morning.
An arrest report obtained by Fox News Digital says the victim, identified as Andrea Doria Dos Passos, 37, was seen in surveillance footage arriving outside the Miami City Ballet building around midnight before lying down near its entrance. Gibert then showed up and started surveying the area before retrieving “some type of metal pipe from the ground,” it says.
“The male at one point, with the metal pipe still in hand, sits on a bench near the victim at which time the video shows the male approach the victim while she was sleeping and begins to strike her with the metal pipe [in] the head and face several times,” police wrote.
WOMAN BEATEN TO DEATH IN MIAMI BEACH: REPORT
Gregory Gibert has been taken into custody following a beating death outside the Miami City Ballet building, police say. (Miami-Dade County Corrections/Google Maps)
The suspect reportedly discarded the weapon in a nearby trash can and then fled the scene before an employee of the Miami City Ballet discovered her body the next morning.
Police say they identified Gibert based on physical descriptions and a mugshot of him from a past arrest.
They managed to track him down at one of his known addresses, wearing the same clothing in the surveillance footage, including shoes and shorts that “had what appeared to be bloodstains on both of them.”
The Miami Beach Police Department told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that it is working closely with the State Attorney’s Office in the investigation into the killing. (Miami Beach Police Department)
Investigators also said in the report that the victim had changed her name and gender in October 2023.
The motive for the killing is unclear. Bond for Gibert has not yet been set.
The Miami Beach Police Department headquarters in Miami Beach, Florida. (Google Maps)
A Miami Beach Police Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that “This remains an open investigation, and as the judicial process unfolds, we are committed to collaborating closely with the State Attorney’s Office.”
Greg Norman is a reporter at Fox News Digital.