A remorseless ex-con gunned down a Louisiana priest and used the slain cleric's cash and car to take his ex-wife and kids to Disney World, authorities said.
Jeremy Wayne Manieri was arrested when investigators used the stolen car's anti-theft device to track him down at a hotel in Winter Haven, Fla., officials said.
Manieri was up before sunrise to beat the crowds at the Orlando theme park, where he planned to use three-day passes bought with the blood money, officials said.
The suspect left the gun used to kill the Rev. Edward Everitt inside the stolen car. Cops found a wallet with one of the priest's business cards in the hotel room, officials said.
"He left a trail of evidence that a blind man could have followed," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said.
The suspect had stepped outside his hotel room for a cigarette when authorities descended upon him Tuesday morning.
Manieri, 31, a registered sex offender, used Everitt's .380-caliber semi-automatic pistol to slay the priest on Sunday in a Mississippi retreat house used by several priests, authorities said.
Manieri worked as a handyman on the property.
After leaving the slain priest's body on the couch of the waterfront home, Manieri robbed the dead man and drove off in the priest's silver Chevrolet HHR.
He coolly picked up his ex-wife, his 10-year-old stepson and 5-year-old daughter and drove to a Mobile, Ala., motel.
They left Monday for Florida, checking into a Days Inn that night and buying the passes for Disney World. A caretaker found Everitt's body the same day.
Manieri, who has a long criminal history, is a registered sex offender with a 2006 conviction for touching a child or a mentally defective person "for lustful purposes," the Mississippi sex offender registry shows.
Everitt, 70, became a priest in the Dominican order in 1968, and was the pastor at Holy Ghost Church in Hammond, La. He frequently went to the Mississippi waterfront home after Sunday Mass.
Bishop Robert Muench of the Diocese of Baton Rouge praised the slain priest for his decades of service.
"This tragic loss of Father Ed's life leaves a deeply-felt void in all our lives," Muench said. "May our grief be seen in that perspective as we thank God for his valued life and priestly ministry."
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