Sarasota police charge woman with murder. Man found with stab wounds on bathroom floor
The Sarasota Police Department arrested a 43-year-old woman on Monday in connection to a killing that left one man dead.
Eugenia Bright was arrested in connection to a suspicious death that happened on Nov. 21.
Bright's employer called the dispatch concerned that Bright didn’t show up to work. Officers went to an apartment on the 800 block of Mecca Drive in Sarasota just before 11 a.m. for a welfare check. Officers arrived on the scene and were followed by rescue workers.
Rescue workers found Bright unconscious on a bed in the master bedroom with several pills and a pill bottle next to her on the bed.
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Officers found blood on the bathroom door and floor. They found a 53-year-old man dead on the bathroom floor, covered in blood. He had two very large incisions on the upper back, indicating he had been stabbed, police officials said.
A chef’s knife between eight to 10 inches long and a handwritten note with funeral requests were found by officers on a dresser. The note was signed by Bright’s first initial and last name, officials said.
“I do not want a funeral!!!!” the note said. “Just cremate me! Do not take my body to Carlos Jones. Just find someone that will do a cremation!”
Bright was taken to Sarasota Memorial Hospital. On the way there, she was given a small dose of Narcan to treat the ingested narcotics.
Detectives later visited Bright at the hospital, where she was groggy and difficult to understand, officials said. She had a two-inch laceration on the inner side of her right wrist that appeared to be self-inflicted and required stitches, officials said.
She told detectives that she tried killing herself by taking about 12 pills of a substance that officials haven’t released the name of.
“When asked about what happened, she teared up and stated she was tired,” officials said in a police report.
Her clothes, which contained evidence of blood, were collected by a crime scene technician, along with DNA swabs from her hands. Officials said there were no defensive wounds or signs of her being battered.
A witness told officers that they heard a female voice coming from within the apartment and screaming aggressively at 3:30 a.m. the night the murder happened.
Bright was charged with second-degree murder and was taken to the Sarasota County Jail, where she is being held without bond.
A motion was filed on Tuesday to give investigators access to Bright’s phone.
“Reasonable grounds exist to believe that the defendant utilized the cellphone in furtherance of her criminal conduct,” the motion said.
She has a criminal arraignment scheduled for Jan. 13.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Woman in Sarasota arrested after man found with stab wounds in bathroom
