Suspect arrested in Minneapolis church’s brutal murder of grandmother

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – Surveillance cameras helped police piece together the final hours of the grandmother found brutally beaten to death outside a north Minneapolis church in July, ultimately identifying her killer, court documents show.

Byron Bautista, 38, is charged with second-degree murder, according to court documents.

Bautista was spotted on surveillance video with Felisha Smith, 57, near Chicago Avenue and East Lake Street on July 13, police said. Surveillance cameras later captured the couple getting off a bus about five miles away in north Minneapolis, investigators said. Traffic cameras then recorded Bautista carrying Smith near the Spirit of the Lord Church on Penn Avenue North, a block from the bus stop.

“It’s traumatic,” said Bianca Harvey, Smith’s daughter. “I really can’t believe he would do this to my mother.”

Smith’s daughters said they did not recognize Bautista and had no idea how their mother became involved with him.

Smith suffered head trauma after a shooting in 2014, her daughters said. She disappeared after leaving The Estates at Chateau, a long-term care facility where she lived, they said.

Smith’s daughters said the medical examiner told them their mother had also been sexually assaulted. Court documents do not mention sexual assault, but say police found her body partially undressed.

It’s unclear why Smith boarded a bus headed north to Minneapolis.

If convicted, Bautista faces a possible 40-year prison sentence. But for Smith’s daughters, that’s not enough.

“If Minnesota had the death penalty, I would like them to implement it,” Harvey said.

Bautista will be arraigned by a Hennepin County judge Monday afternoon. Smith’s children plan to attend.