No bond for Haines City triple-shooting suspect

HAINES CITY, Fla. (FOX 13) - The man accused of shooting and killing two women and a child faced a judge for the first time Monday after turning himself in.

Haines City police said 38-year-old Ernst Cherizard was on the run for two days. They said he even fled to South Florida, but on Sunday, he turned himself to police. Cherizard is accused of fatally shooting his 23-year-old girlfriend, Eli Junia Normil, inside a Haines City apartment complex before turning the gun on Normil’s 6-year-old daughter, Elizabelle Frenel. 

Police said the little girl was shot three times on Friday night. She passed away the following day. They said Cherizard also shot Normil’s mother, 48-year-old Nicole Guillume, who showed up a short time later looking for her daughter, the family told FOX 13.

While on the run, police said Cherizard posted to social media, apologizing for the slayings on Facebook. The post said in part that he and Normil were fighting for the gun when "he lost it," adding that it was like he "heard voices in his head” and what he did was “pure evil.”

"Daddy is so sorry with all my heart," he wrote. "I can't even explain what happened [because] I can't believe this happened."

Court records and police documents revealed a trend of violence inside the household that built up to Friday night’s shooting. In April 2017, Normil filed a domestic violence injunction against Cherizard.

Months later, he was arrested for domestic violence aggravated battery against Normil while she was seven months pregnant with her twins. Those twins are now over a year old, and will have to grow up without their mom. 

Police said Cherizard fled in his vehicle after the shooting and was even spotted at a Boynton Beach toll plaza after midnight on Saturday. Authorities with the Haines City Police Department said they teamed up with the U.S. Marshals to find him.

After turning himself in for Friday’s shooting, detectives said they spent hours interviewing Cherizard before booking him into jail.

He was somber and quiet as he walked into the Bartow courthouse Monday, where a judge ordered him to be held without bond on three counts of first-degree murder.

Meanwhile, Normil’s cousin said the family is heartbroken, adding that one death is hard enough, but three is unthinkable. 

“We’re grieving. We’re grieving right now," Mia Joseph offered. "One murder is one awful and three murders is just too much. We just want to grieve. We have nothing to say to him. He doesn’t exist.”