A victim of a brutal domestic attack remains hospitalized and her assailant is dead after he drowned in a Tamarac canal Saturday night.
Around 7:30 p.m., Tyheim Lamar Alexis, 30, began beating his 32-year-old girlfriend at a convenience store in the 7900 block of West Commercial Boulevard in Lauderhill. When Alexis saw the store clerk calling police, he dragged the victim, Stephanie Chin, to the rear of a nearby bedding store, then into a residential neighborhood in Tamarac where he continued to beat and attempted to choke her.
Neighbors hearing the attack called 911 and even tried to detain the attacker, who managed to break free. When Alexis saw the blue lights of arriving patrol cars, he attempted to elude them by jumping into a canal and swimming to the other side.
BSO deputies threw a flotation device to the suspect but he ignored it and kept trying to swim away. At some point, Alexis went under the water and did not resurface. Deputies jumped into the canal in an attempt to rescue the suspect. Rescue divers from Lauderhill Fire Rescue quickly found Alexis at the bottom of the canal, in about 15 feet of water and brought him to shore. Tamarac Fire Rescue transported him to University Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.
The female victim sustained serious facial and head wounds and was transported to Broward General Medical Center, also by Tamarac Fire Rescue. At last report, she remained hospitalized.
The Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office will perform an autopsy on Alexis, who had a lengthy prior criminal history.