Florida Woman Doused Herself In Diet Mountain Dew To Erase DNA After Killing Roommate

Florida Woman Doused Herself In Diet Mountain Dew To Erase DNA After Killing Roommate

A blood-smudged Florida woman suspected of murder accrued additional charges after she asked police for a soda, then “poured it all over herself” in an attempt to scrub forensic evidence from her body, Daytona Beach police said.

Nichole A. Maks, 35, was charged with tampering with evidence and resisting arrest with violence and premeditated first-degree murder in the death of 79-year-old Michael Cerasoli on Aug. 5, per a probable cause affidavit shared.

Firefighters were called to a smoldering home on the 600 block of Clark Street at 1:46 a.m. on July 1. Clothes on the second floor had been set on fire, the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office told Fox News Digital, but said that they had “no [additional] information on the arson investigation.” After quickly extinguishing the flames, first responders found Cerasoli lying facedown in a blood-spattered room.

 

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When pressed, police said she conceded that she knew the man but denied seeing him on the day he was murdered. Then she shifted again, telling police she currently lived with Cerasoli and was at their home earlier that day. Maks told detectives that she never entered Cerasoli’s bedroom and only set foot on the second floor of their shared apartment to “feed her spiders.”

When asked about the weapons she had dropped, police said, Maks became “agitated” and demanded a lawyer. Police returned later with a warrant to test the woman’s bloodied body for DNA evidence.

Maks then asked for a can of Diet Mountain Dew and police obliged her. She began to “procrastinate” with the drink, and detectives tried to pull the can away from her, police said.

Then, Maks “began to resist and poured the can of soda all over her body and hair… pulling away from officers in attempts to interfere with the possible evidence on [her] body,” according to the affidavit. Blood on the knife found near Cerasoli’s body matched samples taken from Maks’ clothing, police said. The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported that her DNA was also recovered on the weapon’s handle.