An accused Kendall apartment killer chooses death on Florida’s Turnpike

Declared mentally incompetent to stand trial for murder in January, Camilo Quintero was a patient at a maximium security mental health clinic in Homestead. Monday, Quintero jumped out of a bus restroom’s emergency exit window.

At the time, that bus was rumbling down Florida’s Turnpike. Quintero, 23, bounced off the highway just south of Lake Worth Road in Palm Beach County. He lingered in critical condition before dying Tuesday morning.

The chartered bus, loaded with patients evacuated after losing power to Hurricane Irma’s outer band winds, was on its way back to the South Florida Evaluation & Treatment Center. Both that Homestead facility, which houses 238 patients according to its website, and South Florida State Hospital in Pembroke Pines, are owned and operated by Correct Care Solutions.

In an e-mail to The Miami Herald, Correct Care Solutions spokesman Jim Cheney said three security officers, one mental health provider and one nurse were on the bus with Florida Highway Patrol and Correct Care security escorting the bus. Quintero, the e-mail said, locked himself in the restroom before forcing the window open.

“This is a tragic incident, and our thoughts are with the patient’s family,” Cheney wrote.

Quintero’s arrest affidavit says he suddenly snapped on a roommate while living at Kenlands Walk Condo in December 2015. He stabbing his rommate several times, then put a bottle of cologne in a sock and beat the man in the head with the makeshift blackjack.

The roommate was declared dead at Kendall Regional Medical Center. Meanwhile, the report says Quintero needed no prompting to tell police what he’d done.

This story was originally published September 19, 2017 at 7:35 PM with the headline "An accused Kendall apartment killer chooses death on Florida’s Turnpike."