Missing Haitian man was likely kidnapped and tortured by jailed couple, Miami police say
The case of a missing Haitian construction worker was strange enough to begin with, but now it’s become downright bizarre.
A month after police arrested a couple and charged them with the kidnapping and torture of a man who eventually escaped, they say they now believe that Gerson Monfort — a construction worker missing and not seen since New Year’s Eve — suffered a similar fate.
But the couple have not been charged with the crime, and there is still no sign of Monfort.
“There are no new charges,” said Miami Police spokeswoman Kiara Delva. “The only update is that they are now identifying him as a victim.” The couple “said they released him and he was unharmed. But detectives have yet to make contact with the victim.”
It was just last week when friends of Monfort, 43, identified him as the missing person that Miami police say they had been seeking since the early January arrests of Marie and Occius Dorsainvil. Police didn’t say at the time what the connection might have been.
Police released Monfort’s picture on Jan. 11 without identifying him and asked for the public’s help a week after the Dorsainvils were arrested. Delva said Friday that investigators found a picture or pictures of Monfort on Occius Dorsainvil’s cellphone, but couldn’t identify him. She said the couple claim they released him unharmed.
Last week Monfort’s friends came forward and said the last time they had heard from him was on WhatsApp just after 6 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. One friend even said he went to police on Jan. 4 to say his friend was missing after he failed to show up at a weekly dominoes game, didn’t show up for work and wasn’t answering texts. But the friend couldn’t say what police agency he spoke with.
It’s also still not clear how, or if, Monfort knew the Dorsainvils, or how they even came upon each other — if they did.
Marie Paul, who said she lives with Monfort but hasn’t heard from him since New Year’s, said she doesn’t recognize the clothes he is wearing in the police photo.
“Maybe they put those clothes on him when they kidnapped him,” she said.
Miami-Dade County records show that Monfort was married in December 2017. The woman listed as his wife couldn’t be reached.
Marie Dorsainvil, 52, and Occius Dorsainvil, 56, have been jailed without bond since Jan. 6, charged with armed robbery, attempted murder and the Dec. 28 kidnapping of a still unidentified man, who somehow managed to escape.
The crazy scheme, according to police, began when Marie Dorsainvil met the man, asked him for a ride home, then invited him into the couple’s home in the 700 block of Northwest 69th Street. Inside and waiting for him, the man told police, was Occius Dorsainvil, with a gun.
For the next three days the man said he was alternately tied up with cord and chains and forced to crawl to the bathroom. He also told police that he was forced to say he was sleeping with Marie Dorsainvil as blackmail at gunpoint, and that they told him if he didn’t fork over $50,000 or the title to his car, he would be killed.
Finally, after three days, the man said Occius Dorsainvil took him back to his car and forced him to drink a concoction of bleach and Haitian rum. The man told police he passed out, and when he awoke he flagged down a passerby to call police. When they got there, the man was throwing up. It didn’t take long for police to find the Dorsainvils.
This story was originally published February 4, 2022 at 10:28 AM.
