Minneapolis man who allegedly beat one woman to death charged with vicious assault on another woman

A Minneapolis man who earlier this year was charged with beating a woman to death outside a church now stands charged with an additional count of first-degree assault for allegedly viciously beating another woman.

Byron Vinicio Vargas Bautista, 38, was charged with first-degree assault in Hennepin County District Court on Wednesday. That comes after he was charged with second-degree murder in September for the death of 57-year-old Felisha Smith.

Vargas Bautista was in custody when the new charges were filed. He is being held in the Hennepin County jail in lieu of $1 million bail. His attorney, Peter Johnson, declined to comment on the new charges but said he was aware they were coming and the two cases would tag together in court.

The new allegations show that police interviewed a woman on Sept. 17 after fielding a report of domestic assault. The woman had been taken to the hospital with extensive bruising to her face and body. Doctors had to remove a portion of her skull to access her brain, which was bleeding.

She told investigators that on Sept. 13 she had made pizza for Vargas Bautista, whom she had been in a romantic relationship with for several months. Vargas Bautista had been sleeping after drinking alcohol, when she woke him up he was so enraged that he immediately started punching and kicking her.

The beating continued throughout the night. At some point her nose broke and began gushing blood. The next morning the woman could not get out of bed. Vargas Bautista allegedly threatened to kill her. Her bruises were still visible a week after the assault and her medical treatment is ongoing.

Police arrested Vargas Bautista on Sept. 19, not long after that domestic assault, in connection with the beating death of Smith. Johnson said the timing of the arrest coming so quickly after the alleged domestic assault was coincidental.

In the murder case, Minneapolis police were called to a church on July 14 near the intersection of Oak Park and Penn avenues N., where they found Smith’s body outside.

Witnesses said they saw Smith with a “Latino man” the night before. Police used surveillance videos to trace Smith and Bautista’s movements that night. They were together near the corner of Lake Street and Chicago Avenue and then took Metro Transit buses throughout the city before exiting near the scene of the crime. Traffic cameras appeared to show Bautista carrying Smith part of the way toward the church. Later he is seen going back and forth to the scene of the crime before eventually leaving.

Two months later, Minneapolis police on patrol in south Minneapolis saw Bautista and recognized him as the unknown man from the surveillance video.

Bautista was read his rights, and he told investigators that he did not know Smith or have any memory of what he did on the night of July 14. When he was shown photos of the suspect in the crime, he told police it was him.

Members of Smith’s family spoke with Fox 9 in August and said she had been living at a long-term care facility in Minneapolis because she survived a shooting in 2014 that left her with a traumatic brain injury. She disappeared in July after she signed herself out of the facility.

Vargas Bautista was due in court Wednesday for a first appearance on the new charge.