An 80-year-old homeless man proved that he was ready to kill for his cellphone when he hacked and slashed a 70-year-old man he accused of stealing his mobile phone, the police in Hialeah, Florida said.

Guillermo Bejerano now faces charges of attempted second-degree murder and aggravated battery for attacking Emerito H. Lopez, 70, outside a grocery store in Hialeah last Sunday.

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Police reports showed that Guillermo had accused Lopez of stealing his cellphone but the latter denied the accusations.

Witnesses said that at the height of the heated argument between the two old men, Bejerano suddenly took out a machete he kept in a shopping cart and started slashing and hacking Lopez.

The scene looked something out of a movie, said one witness. There were people who tried to intervene to stop Bejerano but the sight of a man holding a machete kept anyone from moving closer to the suspect, witnesses said.

Police investigators said the victim sustained fractured skull and hand and suffered several lacerations that required 17 stitches.

Seeing the wounded victim, Bejerano then went to a nearby supermarket and told a security officer to call the police because he had killed someone. He even shouted that he killed someone, police said.

"He was shouting 'mate a uno!', which means 'I killed one' and everybody kept their distance," one witness said.

Lopez, however, survived the attack and is now recuperating at  a hospital in Florida. Bejerano, meanwhile, was arrested by responding policeman.

Interviewed by investigators, Bejerano said he got mad when Lopez refused to hand his phone back. He insisted on his claim that it was Lopez who took his cellphone that he has been keeping for years.

It was not known whether or not the phone that triggered Bejerano's outburst was recovered. The model and brand of the phone was not also disclosed in the police report. 

TagsFlorida, hacking