Left: Said Alexander Hernandez Gonzalez (Martin County Sheriff”s Office). Right: Tiger Shore Beach in Stuart, Florida, where Hernandez Gonzalez allegedly tried to drown a woman (Google Maps).
While strolling alone on a Florida beach, a woman nearly faced a fatal encounter when a man allegedly ambushed her, attempting to drown her by holding her head beneath the water’s surface.
Alexander Hernandez Gonzalez, age 26, has been charged with attempted first-degree murder in connection with this incident. According to the Martin County Sheriff’s Office, the attack unfolded around 11 p.m. last Thursday at Tiger Shore Beach, located in Stuart.
The situation came to light when police received a call from a man who was speaking to a relative on the phone. The conversation abruptly ended with the sound of her screams, and subsequent attempts to contact her proved futile.
Officers arrived approximately 20 minutes later to find the woman in a state of distress, visibly shaking and bearing marks around her neck. She recounted that as she walked along the shore while talking on her phone, an assailant suddenly grabbed her from behind.
“The attacker yanked her hair, seized her neck, and submerged her head in the ocean, preventing her from breathing and forcing her to ingest seawater,” authorities documented.
In addition to the assault, the suspect allegedly threw her phone into the water. The victim mentioned noticing a man she suspected was her attacker just minutes before the assault, although she couldn’t identify him due to the darkness.
“The subject rolled her onto her face and placed his full body weight on her head with one hand while striking her repeatedly with elbow strikes to the back of her head and the left side of her face with his other hand,” she said.
She said the suspect did not say anything during the attack and she believed she may have lost consciousness at some point. The next thing she remembered was crawling out of the ocean. She ran back to her car, where she found deputies.
On Sunday, cops in nearby Port St. Lucie began investigating a mental health crisis incident involving Hernandez Gonzalez, who said he killed a woman by drowning her, according to the affidavit.
In a post-Miranda interview with cops, Hernandez Gonzalez said he was at the beach on the night in question when he saw a woman walking alone along the shoreline talking on the phone. The suspect said he didn’t plan on attacking anyone but he was feeling suicidal, per the affidavit. He allegedly attacked her from behind, threw her phone in the water and began choking her.
They began to struggle and the victim yelled “who the f– are you?” That’s when he allegedly began holding her head underwater.
“Said stated the [victim] eventually stopped fighting, and he believed she died,” cops wrote. “Said stated ‘I thought that I could not stop right now’ because he had gone too far, so he started choking her until she stopped moving.”
Hernandez Gonzalez said he moved her body with his foot to confirm she was dead and left her along the shoreline before walking back to his car, according to cops.
When asked if he felt bad about what he allegedly did, he said “No, I don’t feel nothing,” which he felt was a “problem.”
Cops arrested the suspect and took him to the Martin County Jail where he remains without bond. Authorities say he is an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela.
