Army soldier bludgeoned wife to death after he Googled how to kill someone with a bat: police

A Hawaii-based soldier bludgeoned and stabbed his estranged wife to death and now Army prosecutors are seeking a premeditated murder charge, authorities said.

Military police found the body of Selena Roth, 25, in a large trash can in her home, authorities said and the Star Advertiser reported. 

According to authorities, U.S. Army Spc. Raul Hernandez Perez, 25, and Roth were intimately involved while Roth was in a previous “open” marriage, Army Prosecutor Capt. Matthew Bishop said.

Roth divorced her first husband and married Hernandez Perez in January 2020, authorities said.

Bishop said it was a rocky marriage with a lot of fighting and at one point, Roth smashed her husband’s video game console and cellphone, according to the report. 

Hernandez Perez rekindled a relationship with a high school girlfriend from Florida, which made Roth upset, but she did not want to lose him, authorities said.

Hernandez Perez got a temporary restraining order against Roth and moved into the barracks, according to the Star Advertiser.

However, they continued to have consensual sex together, which a first sergeant ordered him to cease the visits, but he continued them anyway, Bishop said. 

Hernandez Perez filed for divorce in October 2020 and Roth posted on social media that she was moving back to the mainland, but the couple still spent most of Jan. 9, together, their one-year wedding anniversary, according to authorities.

Cell phone tracking and closed-circuit video showed that the pair returned to the base around midnight, the report noted.

On Jan.10, Hernandez Perez googled whether a blow from a wooden bat could kill someone and how many blows it would take, Bishop said and the Star Advertiser noted.

Roth’s family did not hear from her after the anniversary night, so her mother asked for a check on her home on January 13, authorities said.

When the base’s security arrived, they found the door ajar and the upstairs bedroom’s four walls and ceiling were spattered with blood and the mattress was stained with blood, authorities said.

Security found her body stuffed into a large-wheeled garbage receptacle and she was covered with the sheets from the bed and some towels, Bishop said and the report noted. 

Video footage showed Hernandez Perez disposing of a white garbage bag holding something long outside his barracks on the morning of Jan.10, authorities said.

Medical personnel determined that Roth died from blunt-force trauma to the head and four stab wounds and she was hit with such force that her skull shattered, Bishop said.