Post by Joanna on May 8, 2017 18:52:58 GMT -5
Killer's Son Stabs Roommate to Death While Hugging Her Goodbye
Twenty-one-year-old Brooke Preston (above left) was preparing to leave town and saying goodbye to her former roommate when the man inexplicably stabbed her repeatedly Saturday (March 25) morning at a house in unincorporated West Palm Beach. Randy Herman Jr. (right), 24, is facing a first-degree murder charge and being held without bond at the Palm Beach County Jail in connection with the young woman’s death. The report indicates Herman and Preston had been roommates, but Preston had recently moved out and planned to return to Pennsylvania, where she grew up.
On Sunday morning, Preston went to the house to say goodbye to Herman, who is also from Pennsylvania, at which time he gave her a memorial T-shirt commemorating a mutual friend who had died. When Preston hugged her former roommate, for reasons unknown, he stabbed her with a hunting knife. There were a dozen stab wounds to the woman’s back and others to her throat and abdomen. According to the report, there were also defensive cuts on her left hand. “Herman told me that all he could remember after giving Preston the T-shirt was blood,” a Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office detective wrote in the arrest report.
Following his attack on Preston, Herman then drove her vehicle to Haverhill Park, about a half-mile away, where he phoned 911. “Someone’s been murdered,” he told the dispatcher. “I’m at Haverhill Park. Just send the police. It was me. I’m sorry.”
A friend of Preston’s told PBSO the woman had spent part of Friday night with Herman, but left because he was drunk and acting weird. Preston told the friend she didn’t feel comfortable spending the night at the house with Herman. She returned with a friend the following morning around 7:30 to retrieve the remainder of her belongings. She went to breakfast with the friend, then dropped the person off before returning to the house a final time to say goodbye to Herman.
Herman called 911 at 9:04 a.m. While waiting for deputies to arrive at the park, he texted his mother and said he loved her. When deputies arrived, Herman urged them to go to his home because someone there was hurt really bad. Herman was covered in blood and had sustained a cut to the webbing between his left thumb and index finger consistent with his hand having slipping on a wet – presumably bloody – knife, the detective wrote in the report. He also had several scratch marks on his chest. During questioning, Herman cried and apologized several times and told detectives he and Preston were the only ones in the house, so he must have done it.
According to neighbors, Herman and Preston were not romantically linked. There is nothing in the arrest report indicating the two were anything more than friends. A Pennsylvania television station reported that Herman and Preston went to high school together.
Herman’s father, Randy Herman Sr., was accused of killing his girlfriend in Luzerne County, Penn., Feb. 11, 2015. Gail Monahan, 50, was found shot to death in the house she shared with Herman Sr., 53. Approximately two months later, Herman Sr. was found dead inside a pickup truck in Alabama as law enforcement closed in on him. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.
Sources: Jorge Milian, The Palm Beach Post, March 27, 2017, and WPEC.
