Man who brutally beat Niagara family charged in woman’s death

A man who is currently serving 12 years in prison for attempting to kill two Niagara Region residents has now been charged in the death of an elderly woman in Mississauga.

On Monday, police arrested and charged 47-year-old Alexander Bates with the first-degree murder of Mary Araujo.

The 83-year-old woman’s body was found by Peel police in her Mississauga home on Dec. 21, 2018. Police say she was found with “obvious signs of trauma.”

Bates was recently convicted of attempting to kill the father of a girl he sexually abused years before and another woman on the same day as Araujo’s murder.

Bates had violently assaulted and tied up 49-year-old Alberto Araujo, and his mother-in-law, Lynda Gallandt in the basement of a Smithville home just four days before Christmas.

Gallandt needed more than 40 staples to sew a large wound to her head and Alberto suffered a fractured skull and brain bleeding.

Bates was out on parole for sexual assault at the time of the attacks.

When police arrived on scene, Bates pulled out a fake gun and officers shot him, resulting in him now being confined to a wheelchair.

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