How does a 20-year marriage end in murder on an otherwise quiet street on the south barrier island?
That’s what investigators are trying to sort through in the case of a 57-year-old man arrested in his former home on Seagrape Drive a week ago, with his estranged wife shot dead, hands tied with garbage bags and body wrapped in a rug.
What they have found so far is a cycle of domestic violence, reconciliations and dropped charges stemming back to 2004.
Cynthia Georgiana Betts, the victim, and Asbury Lee Perkins II, the accused killer, were married on July 13, 1991, five months after Betts divorced her previous husband, Apostolos Madoukas, according to Palm Beach County court records.
It was her third marriage at 39, his first at age 33.
Betts had been a licensed cosmetologist and a licensed real estate agent since 1982. Perkins got his real estate license the year after they were married.
During the next 15 years, their names can be found on corporate filings for three companies – Target Electronics Inc., Alp LLC and American Component Stock Exchange, Inc.
In 2000, the couple purchased a 3,900-square foot pool home in the upscale Spanish River Landings subdivision of Boca Raton for $440,000, a property that was sold in July 2010 for $850,000 before they moved to Vero Beach.
While they lived there, they bought a home in Surfside, just north of Miami Beach, was a less successful investment. After paying $617,000 in August 2005, and putting some money into improvements, they sold it during the real estate crash for only $385,000 in September 2009, according to the Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser.
Perkins’ troubles with the law seem to have begun around 2004, when he was arrested by the Boca Raton Police Department on a felony domestic violence charge. Perkins pleaded no contest and was sentenced in October 2004 to 12 months’ probation, Palm Beach County court records show.
Then in 2009, just before Perkins and Betts moved to Vero, Perkins was arrested in Deerfield Beach by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and charged with assault and resisting arrest without violence.
Court records show he entered a plea of no contest to resisting arrest. The assault charge was reduced to battery and eventually dropped. The court withheld adjudication on the resisting arrest charge, but Perkins paid $273 in court costs.
Perkins and Betts relocated to Indian River County in 2010 and purchased the home at 2120 Seagrape Drive in the Oceanside subdivision in October of that year for $538,000, according to public records.
The next year, things seem to have gone downhill rapidly.
On Sept. 16, 2011, Perkins was arrested by Indian River Shores police on A1A for driving under the influence, at which time he failed to take a breathalyzer test. Then two months later, he was picked up on Ocean Drive by the Vero Beach Police Department for driving with a suspended license.
Perkins got his second DUI on January 2012 and again refused to take a breathalyzer and was still driving with a suspended license. In April 2012 he was again booked in to serve time on the DUI charges.
On Feb. 24, 2013, Perkins was arrested by the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office at the Sandrift Motel on U.S. 1 in Sebastian for disorderly intoxication and resisting arrest. At the time, he still listed his home address as 2120 Seagrape Drive.
That was where he was arrested on St. Patrick’s Day by the Sheriff’s Office for disorderly intoxication and violation of probation. Then on May 27, Perkins was again arrested on Seagrape Drive for misdemeanor domestic violence battery, a charge that kept him in jail for a couple of months.
During that period, Betts applied for and received a protection order against Perkins. In June 2013 while Perkins was incarcerated, she also evicted Perkins from the Seagrape Drive home, according to court records.
Perkins was released from jail on Aug. 1, 2013, under a court order not to have contact with Betts, not to go near the Seagrape Drive home, and not to possess or consume alcohol. But the very next day, he was arrested again on charges that he violated his probation, violated a protection order and burglarized his former home. The burglary charge was later dropped.
He pleaded no contest to the battery charge and was sentenced to 45 days in jail and released on Sept. 13 with credit for time served.
Then on Sept. 23, 2013, Perkins was again arrested on charges of misdemeanor domestic violence battery and resisting arrest. That time, Perkins posted bond and was released.
Court proceedings on Perkins’ September 2013 arrest were still pending this fall when on the evening of Nov. 3, Sheriff’s deputies responded to a call from Betts’ father asking them to check on his daughter because he hadn’t been able to reach her by phone.
Deputies found Perkins at the home, knew he had a firearm, secured him, got a search warrant and found Betts’ body, which had been in the home for about a day. Police said Perkins admitted shooting Betts and said he was preparing to dump her body in a lake.
“Perkins admitted to killing Betts because she took money out of their banking account without his knowledge and she continually ‘nagged’ him,” police said,
Substance abuse appears to have played a role in Perkins’ spiral downward, but records also show Betts numerous times failed to follow through with pressing charges against Perkins.
Meanwhile, Perkins sits in the Indian River County Jail, charged with premeditated first degree murder, awaiting his arraignment on Dec. 7 for a crime that could carry the death penalty.
Perkins has temporarily been assigned a public defender by Judge Robert Pegg, who will hear this case. Though he confessed to police, it is unknown whether Perkins will take a plea deal or plead not guilty and face a jury trial.
Assistant State Attorneys David Dodd and Chris Taylor are working the case for the prosecution. Dodd was the lead prosecutor in the manslaughter trial of Gina Albrecht for the death of Indian River Shores resident George May.