ENGLEWOOD, Co. (KUSA) -- A Colorado woman accused of beating a homeless man to death with a baseball bat reportedly told police she did it because she had a good reason.
Jennifer Dowdy said her husband found 42-year-old Denzel Rainey lying lifeless in an alley behind their home last Sunday.
"He was shaking [because] he wasn't sure what he had seen," Dowdy said.
According to police, Rainey had been beaten and was left against a garage. The victim suffered a cracked skull, broken ribs and arms and injuries to vital organs. He died at the hospital.
Forsythia Owen is facing several charges, including first-degree murder, after she reportedly admitted to officers she beat Rainey with a baseball bat. According to an Englewood Police Department arrest affidavit, she said she did so because she claimed the man had sexually abused a young girl she knew.
Dowdy said she spotted Owen just moments before the incident and thought it was odd that she was cutting through the couple’s backyard.
Dowdy said that the victim had been sleeping in the alley for the last week.
"He was really down on his luck and so for this to happen is just shocking," said Dowdy.
Owen was well known in the community and often to neighbors, who said she was a mother. That impression, people said, makes this scenario that much harder to understand.
"It's been shocking devastating. I hate to think it was Forsythia,” said one neighbor. “I never could've imagined that this would happen on my block."
Police said there is no record of Rainey ever being arrested or charged for a sex offense or violent crime.
Owen, however, was arrested a little more than a decade ago for stabbing her boyfriend in the chest.
A judge has set her preliminary hearing for December.
