Suspect Pleads Not Guilty in Grisly Slaying

A businessman accused of killing an associate and dismembering the body has pleaded not guilty to murder charges.

After a short police chase Monday, Murray Weiner, 66, part-owner of Carpet Corner Design Center on Miramar Road, was arrested on suspicion of murdering 55-year-old Robert Raymond Evans nearly a year ago.

About half of Evans’ dismembered body was found wrapped in plastic bags April 24 behind an industrial complex which contains a wholesale tile distributorship with which Weiner did business.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Genero Ramirez said that Weiner shot the victim “at least once in the back of the head,” possibly to avoid paying back a loan of at least $40,000.

A bloodstain found in a storage facility rented by Weiner matches the victim’s blood according to DNA testing, investigators said. Investigators also say that Weiner was the last person to see Evans alive on the morning of Nov. 17, 1991.

Municipal Judge Robert McDonald on Tuesday ordered Weiner held without bail.

Weiner has “an extensive arrest record,” documents show, and was investigated but never charged by New York officials in the death of his stepfather in 1950, Ramirez said.

Defense attorney Thomas Warwick told the judge that a grand jury in New York declined to indict Weiner after it determined that the death was the result of a justifiable homicide after an altercation between Weiner and his abusive stepfather.