Police say the suspect had already been jailed on an injunction-related case before a murder warrant was served.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville police say a 49-year-old man has been arrested in the November 2025 killing of 58-year-old Alesa Leach, a mother of five whose family says she had already tried to protect herself through the court system.
Joseph Anderson was served with a murder warrant on March 20 while he was already being held in the Duval County jail, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Investigators say Leach had an injunction against Anderson, her ex-boyfriend, and that he had previously been arrested in Connecticut after authorities accused him of violating that order. The arrest reopened attention on how protection orders are enforced and on the long gap between Leach’s death and the murder charge now filed in her case.
Police said officers were called to a home on West 14th Street near Myrtle Avenue on Nov. 17, 2025, for a report involving a deceased person. Inside, they found Leach on a mattress, badly injured and already dead, according to local reports that cited the sheriff’s office. Detectives later said evidence placed Anderson inside the home with Leach when she died. Authorities have not publicly laid out the full sequence of what happened inside the house or said exactly what evidence linked him to the killing. But the case did not end when officers left the scene. Investigators continued working for months, building what became a murder case against a man who, police said, had already drawn attention for allegedly violating a court order meant to keep him away from Leach.
The sheriff’s office said Leach had obtained an injunction against Anderson before her death. A separate warrant accusing him of violating that injunction led to his arrest in Connecticut on Dec. 5, 2025, according to News4JAX and other local outlets. He was then extradited back to Jacksonville and held in the Duval County jail. On March 20, the sheriff’s office said, investigators obtained and served a new warrant charging him with murder and additional crimes. Officials have publicly identified Anderson as 49 and Leach as 58, but they have not yet released a detailed arrest narrative spelling out the prosecution’s theory step by step. They also have not publicly described whether there were witnesses, surveillance video, phone records or forensic results central to the case. Those gaps leave major questions unanswered even as the arrest marks a significant turn in the investigation.
For Leach’s family, the case is about more than a criminal charge. Relatives told First Coast News that she was a mother of five and had survived domestic violence before she was killed. In earlier public writing, Leach described herself as a survivor and as a woman trying to rebuild her life after abuse. That history has become a painful part of how her death is now being understood. One of her sons, Titus Baxter, told First Coast News that his mother “was let down by the system” and said she was killed by a man she had protection against. His words captured the sharp grief surrounding the case: the sense that formal legal protections existed on paper, yet still failed to stop violence. The family’s reaction has added urgency to local questions about what happens after an injunction is granted and how quickly suspected violations are handled across state lines.
So far, police have said Anderson faces a murder charge and other related charges, though some reports said the sheriff’s office had not immediately specified every count beyond murder. Court records and a fuller probable-cause narrative were not widely detailed in the initial coverage Monday. That means the next procedural steps are likely to matter as much as the arrest announcement itself. A first appearance or other court proceeding could provide more information about the charges, any bond issues and the evidence investigators say connects Anderson to Leach’s killing. Prosecutors may also use future filings to explain how the injunction case and the homicide investigation intersected. It is still not publicly clear whether the state will argue that Leach’s death followed a pattern of escalating conduct, whether any prior police calls are part of the record, or what timeline investigators believe led from the alleged injunction violation to the killing.
Leach’s story has also resonated beyond the basic facts of an arrest because of how family members describe her. Reports identified her as a Jacksonville mother of five, and older public posts show a woman who spoke openly about surviving abuse and trying to move forward. That contrast has shaped the public response: a woman who had spoken about endurance and family was later found dead in her own city, while the man accused in the case had allegedly already come under scrutiny for violating a court order. Family members have focused less on spectacle than on loss. Their comments point to the life Leach built around her children and to the frustration that comes when protective measures fail to provide actual safety. In that way, the case is not only a homicide investigation. It is also becoming a local test of how officials explain the limits, timing and enforcement of orders meant to shield people from former partners.
As of Monday, Anderson remained in the Duval County jail and the case was moving from a long-running investigation into the court process. The next milestone is expected to come in public court proceedings, where prosecutors and defense lawyers may begin laying out what happened on Nov. 17 and what evidence will be central to the case.
Author note: Last updated March 24, 2026.