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Dive team finds guns near site of Hudson quadruple murder

 
Adam Matos, 28, in jail since Sept. 5, has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
Adam Matos, 28, in jail since Sept. 5, has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
Published Sept. 30, 2014

NEW PORT RICHEY — Investigators found numerous rifles, crossbows and knives in a creek behind the Hudson house where they say Adam Matos murdered four people.

The items are listed in a newly released search warrant that details evidence found in and around the Hatteras Drive house where Matos, a recent transplant from Pennsylvania, was living with his girlfriend, their 4-year-old son and her parents. Authorities say he killed Megan Brown; her parents, Margaret and Gregory Brown; and a local man named Nick Leonard, whom Megan had recently begun dating. Matos faces four counts of first-degree murder.

Among other details revealed in the warrant: All the seats were removed from a Dodge Caravan with Pennsylvania plates that was in the home's garage, and investigators found maggots and pooled blood inside the van. On the garage floor, there were rugs and sheets with blood on them.

According to the warrant, Matos, 28, had dinner and drinks with a neighbor Sept. 3, one day before a media blitz and manhunt to find him and Ismael "Tristan" Santisteban, his autistic son. The dinner was almost a week after a violent domestic incident between Matos and Megan Brown, and the same amount of time since anyone had heard from her, according to court documents.

Matos has been in jail since Sept. 5, when he was found and arrested in the early morning at the Floridan Palace Hotel in downtown Tampa. He had rented a room there before planning to catch a bus to the Keys. Tristan was not harmed in the hotel raid.

During the time between the disappearance of the victims and Matos' capture, Matos sold electronic equipment from the house, according to the warrant, as well as the Browns' four dogs through Craigslist. Investigators believe a Samsung tablet found with Matos was used to sell the items and could provide evidence for his conviction.

Forensic workers found the label from a shovel Matos had bought, using one of the victim's debit cards, buried in soft dirt by the house. They found a bag of zip ties in one of the rooms. Cartridges from a gun were in a trash can, as well as socks with blood on them. A different trash bag had an empty beer box in it.

In the garage, investigators found comforters, rugs, sheets and blankets, all with blood on them, near two empty rifle bags on a workbench. Maggots in the van were in the driver and passenger seats, as well as the back of it, according to the warrant.

A dive team searched the creek behind the house and found eight rifles, a hammer and two knives, a drill bit, two drills and two crossbows.

Contact Jon Silman at jsilman@tampabay.com.