Haitian man, Mesac Damas, is involver in the slaying of his wife and five children, whose bodies were found Saturday.
Deputies identified the victims as Guerline Damas, 32, and her children Michzach, 9, Marven, 6, Maven, 5, Megan, 3 and Morgan, who would have been a year old next week.
Jim Williams from the Collier County Sheriff's Office said Damas' sister-in-law contacted authorities after she hadn't heard from her sister.
"When the officer walked in the house to do a check, he found a deceased person," Williams said. "As he walked through the house to see if anyone else was inside, he found other persons deceased."
The woman slain along with her five children endured regular abuse from her husband but seemed overwhelmed by trying to raise the kids herself and wanted him around as a father figure, Department of Children and Families records show.
Police in Haiti on Monday detained Mesac Damas, wanted for questioning in the slayings of his wife, Guerline Damas, and the couple's three boys and two girls in their Naples, Fla., apartment.
A relative said detectives told them their throats had been slit.
Collier County Sheriff's deputies have called Mesac Damas a person of interest in the slayings.
The 33-year-old boarded a flight to Haiti from Miami International Airport on Friday, a day before police found the bodies.
Just days earlier, a Department of Children and Families caseworker assigned to the family had made an unannounced visit to the apartment and noted in a report that the children, ages 11 months to 9 years, seemed healthy and safe.
Mesac Damas was home and dinner was cooked.
The toddler was wearing a sundress and playing with her doll while the older daughter, dressed in pink, asked the caseworker if she had brought her a pink book bag, because she was going to school next year. The boys were in T-shirts and shorts and the worker didn't see any bruises or marks.
Mesac Damas was due to finish a court-ordered battery intervention course in November.
"There is no safety concern," the file reads.
"Children are doing fine."
But relatives of Guerline Damas, 32, said her husband was a "loose cannon" who would take away his wife's cell phone and be rude to her family.
"You'd never know what he'd do," said her younger brother, Mackindy Dieu, 23, who lived with the couple several years ago.
Dieu said his sister wasn't open about the details of her personal life and her family didn't know she was being abused until January, when Mesac Damas was arrested and charged with misdemeanor battery after he hit his wife as she held their baby daughter in her arms.
According to DCF records, he choked her and ripped her shirt off.
"As this is occurring, the child slipped out of the mother's hand and fell to the floor," the report states.
It was one of a handful of times that sheriff's deputies had been called about domestic disputes between the couple.
But this one was different: Mesac Damas was taken into custody and a restraining order filed.
