Florida Teen Charged With Gruesome Slaying

Sept. 30, 2008— -- A troubled Florida teenager who allegedly bragged to his friends about nearly decapitating a neighbor appeared in court today as police investigated whether he might have killed before.

Alan Michael Tanguay, whose first arrest came at age 12, has been charged with the murder of 58-year-old Patricia Kaliszeski, a woman known in her neighborhood for taking walks with her beloved birds on her shoulder.

The 5-foot-7-inch, 145-pound 16-year-old was taken into custody before dawn Monday after his friends confided in their parents that Tanguay allegedly recounted the killing in great detail, also gloating that he had stolen $6 from her and bought beer.

"It was bothering them so much they just couldn't keep it in. They told their parents, and they called us," Palm Bay Police Detective Ernest Diebel told ABCNews.com.

Police, he said, had released few details about the murder, yet Tanguay's friends "knew it all," he said, including that he had been wearing Vans sneakers, which left bloody imprints in the house.

'Just Send Somebody Please'

Diebel said police believe Kaliszeski was murdered sometime Thursday evening. She had been stabbed more than 20 times, left for dead in her bedroom with her throat slit.

Her ex-husband, whose girlfriend works at a catering business with Kaliszeski, found his ex-wife's body just before 6 p.m. Friday, concerned that she hadn't shown up for work and wasn't reachable by phone.

"There's blood all over the place," he can be heard saying on the 911 tape, calling from a neighbor's house.

When the 911 operator asked him several questions about the appearance of the body, he urged, "just send somebody please."

Also disturbing, Diebel said, is that the teen's friends told police that Tanguay allegedly boasted that he'd killed before and that he has a rule that if he finds someone in the house during a burglary, he has to kill them.

"He claims that was just bragging," he said.

His MySpace page, which has since been made private, reportedly made violent references about how he liked to cut people with knives, Diebel said.

One sentence, according to the police report, read "I like gory sh**, like people getting their neck slit and tounge [sic] pulled out."

Now police are checking with local and state police in areas where Tanguay previously lived, including Maryland, to look for any connection to unsolved murders.

"It's hard to know," Diebel said. "It's hard to think that a 16-year-old kid would, first time out, stab someone numerous times ... cut their throat."

That type of savage killing, he said, is typically reserved for more seasoned offenders.