Murder report details knife, mask, suspect stabbed

• Bread and bagel knife - was missing from the set
• Cape police said that the murder does not appear to be gang-related.

A bloody bread knife, mask and stab wounds on a 13-year-old suspect are among key evidence in a police report on Saturday's killing of a homeless man in Cape Coral.

A Cape Coral Police Department report goes into detail about the murder of Thomas J. Bergstrom, 51, who was living in a homeless camp off Pine Island Road. His body was found by a friend Saturday morning.

A "bread-and-bagel" knife and a white Halloween or hockey-style mask with blood on them was listed in the report as being found at the scene of Bergstrom's murder. Additionally, the report said the suspect in the murder, Yoel Munoz, 13, of Cape Coral, suffered stab wounds and blood smears were found throughout his family's home.

At 4:40 a.m Saturday, hours before Bergstrom's body was found, Munoz had contact with police when they interviewed him in the emergency room at Cape Coral Hospital, where he was being treated for his stab wound. Police said he was uncooperative and provided different accounts of how he was stabbed in the thigh.

Investigators found a knife and mask during a search of the camp and a second area.

Cape police also found blood splatter on the mask matched a pattern on Munoz's face, and writing on the mask was similar to the style of writing found in Munoz's room. The report said that Munoz's mother identified the mask as the same style as one she had bought him.

Police determined Munoz had re-entered his family's Van Loon Lane home via a side window, leaving blood smeared on a wall and a bed. Bloody clothing was found that matched his own stab wounds, the report said.

Police also found a cutlery block for the brand of knife found at the murder scene by police. That knife — the bread-and-bagel knife — was missing from the set.

The report also said that the shoes, "saturated and presumptively positive for blood," worn by Munoz were found in plastic bags in the garage.

The evidence led police to Munoz's arrest Sunday.

A woman who answered the phone at the Munoz home Monday said, "No comment, no comment. My son is innocent. We have no comments." Then she hung up.

Cape police said that the murder does not appear to be gang-related. "Our detectives are continuing to gather evidence through a variety of means in this case," a department spokesman added.

At Munoz's first appearance in juvenile court Monday, he was ordered held in secure detention for 21 days and will be back in court Aug. 18.

Bergstrom's older brother, Lawrence, reached Monday, said he had not talked to him in 13 years. "He told me to stop bothering him.''

The Illinois businessman said he had no idea where his brother had been living until he got a call Saturday about the murder.

"He and I had a closure. My brother never talked with me about his situation. I heard he was in Florida three or four years ago, but I had no idea."

The Illinois man said his brother turned his back on his family.

"Tommy went down there, he was with some friends. He wanted to be left alone. I don't know a lot of the circumstances of his life," he said. "There were no kids, no spouse."

Bergstrom said his younger brother was born in Quincy, Mass., and had been a carpenter and handyman.

"He had a lot of handyman-type jobs and he was a union carpenter," he said. "He just didn't have a career, he lived his life the way he wanted. It's sad."

Bergstrom's friends, Anthony Cashdollar and Ashley Crank, said Munoz, who lives within walking distance to the camp, looks familiar but they never saw him at the camp. "We might have seen him at McDonald's," Crank said.

Cashdollar was emphatic that Bergstrom would not have been in the company of the teenager.

"Tommy wouldn't hang with a boy," he said.

Crank and Cashdollar often hung out with Bergstrom.

"We did stuff for him, and he'd do stuff for us," Crank said, adding that Bergstrom was not destitute and got a disability check monthly. "He had money. He chose this life," she said. "He had a small generator. It was like he really wasn't homeless."

"He never panhandled, and he wasn't dirty," Cashdollar said.

Staff writer Cristela Guerra contributed to this report.