ST CLAIR, Missouri — A St. Louis man is accused of violently assaulting two older housekeeping employees during inside a motel in St. Clair, Missouri on Sunday.
Louis Finocchio, 37, of St. Louis, was charged with two counts of first-degree assault and one count of first-degree robbery, which are both Class A felonies. He also faces one count of resisting/interfering with arrest, which is a Class E felony.
According to the St. Clair Police Department, officers responded at around noon Sunday to the Super 8 Motel located at 1010 South Outer Road regarding a fight disrupting the peace. The fight allegedly happened between two motel employees and a customer.
Staff members found two of their coworkers, both motel housekeeping employees, severely beaten in a blood-covered bathroom on the second floor of the motel. One victim was a 60-year-old man and the other was a 56-year-old woman.
Officers learned that the woman had heard an altercation in a room and walked inside to see what happening. She immediately came back out as if she was thrown, striking her head and body on a door jamb across the hallway. Finocchio found the woman on the hallway floor and started punching and stomping her in the head and face several times, police said.
The man tried to stop Finocchio, but Finocchio punched the man in the face so hard that he lifted off the hallway floor and landed on his back, police said. He lost consciousness and was unable to help the woman as Finocchio continued the assault.
Finocchio then pulled both victims into the bathroom inside the room and closed the door. As he was exiting the motel, he hopped over to the motel front desk and stole about $300 from the drawer, according to police. When he tried to leave, St. Clair officers arrived and tried to stop him in the lobby.
Officers had been looking for Finocchio earlier Sunday for a welfare check, police said. They said Finocchio was reportedly "very agitated and sweating profusely" in the motel lobby.
Police said when officers questioned Finocchio, he became defensive and said he believed the officers were "out to get him." Officers saw that Finocchio's hands were swollen and bloody. When asked about his bloody hands, Finocchio told police he cut his foot.
When officers told him he would be detained as they continued the investigation, he allegedly sprinted passed officers, out of the lobby and onto the motal parking lot. Officers told Finocchio several times to stop running from them and deployed their stun guns to no avail, police said. Finocchio managed to run away after being struck by the stung gun twice.
Deputies from Franklin County helped St. Clair police officers search the area for Finocchio and took him into custody.
Police said both victims had life-threatening injuries as a result of the incident and were taken to local hospitals. The man was in critical but stable condition, and the woman was in critical condition as of Sunday.
"Several family members were able to provide tweets from the defendant stating that he was going to kill people by beating them to death," the probable cause statement said. "Other tweets stated that if someone came into his room, he would kill them and watch NFL next to a dead body in his room."
As of Sunday, Finocchio remained in custody at the Franklin County Adult Detention Center with no bond.
