Police say evidence recovered at the residence helped connect a street confrontation with statements from witnesses and the accused man.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. — A mobile home shared by three men became a central crime scene after a deadly confrontation spilled into a Hallandale Beach street, sending investigators back inside with a search warrant to recover a machete and document blood they say was connected to a roommate’s death.
The search came after Hallandale Beach police arrested Edy Rivas Rizo, 27, in the Aug. 2 death of a roommate whose name was withheld from publicly reported arrest records. Authorities charged Rivas Rizo with first-degree murder. Unlike a case built around evidence discovered at a single location, investigators pieced this one together across several places: the shared residence, the street where surveillance cameras recorded part of the encounter, the spot where the wounded victim collapsed and the home’s rear storage area where police said they eventually located the weapon.
Officers first reached the Sea Esta Mobile Home Park after receiving reports of a stabbing around 1:15 p.m. Police found the victim badly injured outside and learned that the suspected attacker lived nearby. The wounded man was taken to HCA Florida Aventura Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Officers meanwhile went to the residence and called for Rivas Rizo to come outside. Police said he complied. Investigators reported that he was shirtless, had blood on him and had a deep cut on his right hand, an injury for which he received medical treatment.
Before searching the home, police gathered information that connected it to the confrontation outside. One witness said he lived there with both Rivas Rizo and the victim. According to investigators, he remembered Rivas Rizo leaving the residence and going after the other man. Following the struggle in the street, that witness walked back with Rivas Rizo and saw him return with the machete, police said. The witness told detectives Rivas Rizo then placed the weapon somewhere inside the home. That statement helped establish a path investigators could follow when seeking and executing the search warrant.
Police said the warranted search revealed a large amount of blood inside the residence. In a storage area at the rear of the home, investigators found the machete, described in reports as wedged or placed between two doors. Officers said blood appeared to be present on its handle. Public reporting on the arrest report did not provide laboratory findings from DNA, fingerprint or other forensic testing, so the evidentiary significance of any material collected from the weapon has not been established in court. The weapon’s location nevertheless corresponded with the witness’s statement that Rivas Rizo had brought it back to the residence.
The activity inside the home was only one segment of the chronology. Surveillance footage gave detectives another view. Police said the recording showed Rivas Rizo carrying a large machete-style knife and pursuing the victim as the man tried to get away. Investigators said the video captured a blow with the weapon followed by a struggle on the ground. Two other men then intervened and took the machete away, ending the physical confrontation. The existence of video allowed detectives to compare an independent recording of the encounter with the accounts they received from witnesses and from Rivas Rizo himself.
After the men were separated, the scene divided again. One witness accompanied Rivas Rizo toward the residence while another stayed with the victim. Police said the wounded man managed to walk approximately 15 yards before collapsing. The witness beside him told investigators that the victim pointed toward Rivas Rizo and said, “That guy just killed me.” Emergency personnel later took the man to the hospital. The arrest report did not publicly identify him, and the sources reviewed for this story have not supplied his name. Police treated the witness’s account of the statement as part of the evidence supporting the homicide investigation.
Rivas Rizo’s interview with detectives added a competing explanation for the violence. Police said he told investigators the victim had come from a bedroom, punched him near the eye and threatened him while armed. He described himself as fearing for his life and claimed at one point that the victim possessed the machete. According to the arrest report, Rivas Rizo said the victim fell onto the blade during the struggle, causing the fatal injury accidentally. Investigators said he did not explain why his roommate supposedly attacked him, and his account soon came into conflict with what police said was visible on the surveillance recording.
Police reported that Rivas Rizo denied chasing the victim until detectives showed him the video. He then acknowledged the pursuit, investigators said, but told them he had meant to use the broad side of the machete rather than its sharp edge. The changing account is likely to be significant to prosecutors because it concerns the same conduct the camera allegedly captured. Still, statements recorded in an arrest report are not findings of fact, and Rivas Rizo may contest investigators’ interpretation, the circumstances of his questioning or other evidence if the case proceeds through pretrial litigation and trial.
The murder charge also leaves a major part of the story unexplained: why the dispute began. The publicly reported arrest material does not establish a motive, describe a known plan to attack the victim or set out a documented history of serious conflict between the roommates. Rivas Rizo’s own allegation that the victim initiated the encounter is part of the police record, but investigators cited surveillance footage they believed contradicted his description of the later pursuit and stabbing. Prosecutors will ultimately have to establish the elements of first-degree murder rather than rely simply on the fact that a fatal confrontation occurred.
The case gained a second layer on Aug. 3 when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged a detainer with the Broward County Jail. DHS later said Rivas Rizo is a Nicaraguan national who entered the United States through California in April 2022, was apprehended by Border Patrol and was released into the country. The detainer requests notification and an opportunity for federal immigration authorities to take custody if local officials would otherwise release him. It is a separate federal custody mechanism and does not decide the criminal allegation pending in Florida.
DHS publicized the detainer on Aug. 11 and used the case to criticize immigration decisions made under the previous presidential administration. Those policy statements arrived after the homicide investigation and should not be confused with evidence of guilt in the murder case. The factual record outlined by Hallandale Beach investigators instead centers on the scene: what cameras recorded, what witnesses told officers, what police recovered in the home and what Rivas Rizo said during questioning. Each of those pieces may be challenged or interpreted differently as the prosecution moves through court.
Taken together, the residence, the roadway and the recovered machete form the physical map of the investigation. Police say each location supplied a different part of the timeline, but that evidence still must survive legal scrutiny before it can support a conviction. The search of the home helped investigators reconstruct what they believe happened after the confrontation; the court process will determine how much that reconstruction ultimately proves.
Author note: Last updated September 9, 2026.