French tourist stabs naked home intruder before fire breaks out at vacation rental, Florida police say

Florida police said that a naked man was stabbed by a French tourist after trying to break into his rental at a resort island.

The Sanibel Police Department said that officers were called to a report of a man breaking into a vacation rental unit on Buttonwood Lane on Wednesday night.

‘You know it’s just a bad environment, mentally.’

When they arrived, they found a naked man with stab wounds. Neighbors said the naked man was taken away by an ambulance and they didn’t believe he was a tourist.

Police said they had to deal with a structure fire involving a tiki cottage at the residence after taking the man to a hospital.

The property managers of the Seahorse Cottages arrived at the unit after hearing about the incident and spoke to WFTX-TV.

“She pulls in and sees this naked guy,” said property co-manager Matthew Jankauskas. “And he’s just sitting there. He’s getting cleaned up, he’s got wounds on his body. Bleeding, and you know it’s just a bad environment, mentally. You’re looking at that and you’re like wow, that’s crazy. You don’t see that a lot, you don’t see that every day on Sanibel, right.”

They said that the French tourist stabbed the naked man because he was trying to break into their unit.

Sanibel Police said they believed it was an isolated incident but the investigation was ongoing.

WFTX posted video from the alleged crime scene on its news report on YouTube.

A neighbor told WBBH-TV that they knew the suspect, who was identified as Robert Latta Butterfield III, but that she didn’t know why he would allegedly “lose control.” Police told WBBH that he had a lengthy criminal history in Florida as well as Mississippi.

Sanibel is a city and an island on the eastern coast of Florida with about 6,400 residents.

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