How a Duffel Bag, a Dog and a Vacuum Cleaner Led to an Arrest in Human Remains Case
Early Saturday morning, a security worker told police she was on her way to work when she noticed a large duffel bag leaning against a fence in a quiet stretch of Cambridge filled with sleek offices and laboratories. Within hours, investigators would open the bag to find a human torso — but no limbs or head.
Their search for the remaining body parts led them to a nearby apartment building, where they said they found blood-stained bags full of remains and a man named Carlos Colina, scrubbing his apartment with bleach.
On Monday, police released a report describing the search that led to Colina’s arrest. At an arraignment, he pleaded not guilty to counts of assault and battery causing serious bodily injury and improper disposal of human remains. He is being held on $1 million bail, and his pre-trial date is April 14. No one has yet been charged in the killing.
Even as their report laid out their minute-by-minute account of the crime, there was one question police could not yet answer: Why?
The Discovery
The security worker thought the bag looked suspicious, so she reported it to her supervisor once she got into work at Biogen, a biotech lab, around 5:30 a.m., according to the police report. The supervisor didn’t notify anyone else of its presence before the end of his shift, but the next supervisor called Biogen’s Global Command Center, which called Cambridge Police.
Officer Sean Tierney, of the explosive ordnance/K-9 unit, arrived to investigate at about 8:20 a.m. with a dog, according to the report. The dog sniffed the duffel bag but didn’t react as if there were explosives inside.
Instead of moving away from it to sniff other areas, the dog began to sniff the bag more aggressively, digging its nose in to nuzzle the bag while also licking it.
Tierney reached down to pick up the bag and was surprised by how heavy it was, according to the police report. When he tried to drag it, it moved only a foot. He felt something soft inside, and thought it might be filled with balls. He opened the bag slightly and saw something red.
Tierney then realized there weren’t balls inside. There was a body.
After checking with his supervisors, he put on gloves, opened the bag, and found the torso of a man who appeared to be Hispanic, clothed in boxer shorts.
The Night Before
Just hours before, the man inside the bag, who would later be identified as Jonathan Camilien, had been walking around the area, according to the report. At about 7:40 p.m. on Friday, video surveillance captured him and Colina leaving an apartment building on Sixth Street near Biogen. The pair returned at 8:40 p.m., with plastic grocery bags, according to police. Colina’s neighbor happened to be leaving the building around the same time when he saw the pair get off the elevator on the third floor, where Colina lived. At 9:15 p.m., a neighbor heard yelling coming from Colina’s apartment, police said.
Video surveillance captured the pair again an hour later, when they left the building at 10:15 p.m. They returned after an hour. Colina was carrying a bag, and Camilien, who police would later describe as a “thin male believed to be the victim,’’ was on his phone.
This is the last time Camilien would be seen on video surveillance, police said.
The next time Colina appears on video, he is alone, leaving his apartment with a large duffel bag. What happened in the five hours Colina was in the apartment building remains a mystery.
Police said Colina exited the apartment building, struggling with the heavy duffel. After crossing the street, he placed the bag on the ground at the median and paused for about 40 seconds. He then continued across the street with the bag and paused by a bench while someone else walked by.
At 4:18 a.m., according to police, he placed the bag by the fence, then re-entered the building alone. He exited again and re-entered in a side door. Thirty minutes later, Colina once again walked in and out of the apartment building. He was alone, according to police.
He had been captured on Biogen’s cameras, and those at the apartment complex, police said.
The Search
After the discovery of the bag, detectives watched the surveillance video. They went to the Sixth Street apartment building, where they noted that the building requires entry by a fob key card or code, depending on the door, according to police.
The report continues by noting investigators checked the trash rooms. Detective Michael Logan was checking the trash room in the third floor common area when he discovered two blue bags with red-brown stains. Investigators opened one of them to find smaller white bags with red pull ties. They also had red-brown stains. Inside one of the white bags, police said, they found a foot.
Officers would later untie the rest of the white trash bags to find more body parts. Each was wrapped in its own individual bag.
They also found clothing that the “thin male’’ had been wearing in the video. They also found clothing, they said, that they would later identify as Colina’s.
Police soon found a cell phone with a shattered screen, credit cards, a Charlie card, a motor vehicle citation, and a Massachusetts license, all of them cut into pieces. They reassembled the credit cards and the license to identify “the thin male,’’ as Jonathan Camilien, according to the report.
As their colleagues searched the recycling bins, other officers heard the sound of running water and a vacuum cleaner coming from apartment 305 — Colina’s apartment. They listened for 15 minutes and also noticed the smell of bleach.
While they stood outside listening, the apartment’s management company determined that the person who entered the building around 4:18 a.m. was a resident of unit 305, the police report continued. No one else had entered the building for a significant amount of time before or after, according to the company. Police confirmed Carlos Colina lived in the unit by running his information through the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles.
At that point, without being prompted, Colina walked out of his apartment. He identified himself when officers asked for his name and confirmed that he was the only person who lived in the unit, according to police.
An officer told him he would be searched.
“I don’t have a gun on me,’’ Colina said, according to police.
He was telling the truth. He was unarmed. But his clothes were wet and smelled of chemicals, according to investigators. He had scratches on his forehead between his eyes, and a scrape on his arm and on the right side of his neck, officers said. Later, they reported that they noticed a half-inch long scratch on his back.
Police obtained a search warrant. Inside a trash can in the apartment, they found a piece of rope, a handsaw with red-brown stains on the blade and the handle broken off, and cleaning supplies. They saw toolmark scratches in the bathtub and bare patches in the carpet, where the fabric had been cut and removed. Red-brown stains, like the ones on the plastic bags, dyed the floor beneath the carpet, according to the report.
Officers asked Colina if he would accompany them to the police station to answer questions. He said yes.
They said he asked: “Why am I a suspect?’’
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