Police say Armando Benavides’s troubled relationship with his ex-wife reached a boiling point just a few days before Christmas when after getting into a fight, he shot her in the leg. She’s okay and expected to recover, police said.

But what police say Benavides did next differs a bit from most violent domestic disputes: He walked a few blocks through his residential West Kendall neighborhood, lifted the lid of a green garbage bin in front of a home, climbed inside and shut the cover.

Then he shot and killed himself.

“He steps right into the bin and pulls the lid and then commits suicide,” said Miami-Dade Police Spokesman Andre Martin. “It’s an odd one to be sure.”

Police know that, because they watched Benavides climb into the bin and never get out, on surveillance video from a nearby home, according to a Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office report. The report also said that no one looked inside the garbage bin between the time Benavides got into it and when his body was discovered.

Also found next to Benavides in the bin: the 9 mm gun police say he used to shoot his ex-wife, then himself.

When exactly Benavides killed himself is not known. But police believe he was inside the bin for at least 14 hours before his body was discovered by a solid waste truck driver who dumped the bin’s belongings into his truck. Martin said the driver, watching a camera attached to the arm that lifts the garbage, believed he saw some type of holiday decorations that needed to be separated.

When he walked behind the truck to take a look inside, he found much more than ornaments and garlands.

“He saw the body,” said Martin.

History of depression

In the week since Benavides allegedly killed himself, information had been hard to come by. But Wednesday afternoon the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner released a report that shed some light on the Kendall man’s antics.

Born in Cuba and living in the Miami area for about three decades, Benavides was an insurance broker. He also, according to an investigator in the Medical Examiner’s Office, had a history of depression and had been involuntarily committed to hospitals for being mentally unstable at least twice. His ex-wife said he had attempted suicide before and threatened it often.

Benavides, according to the medical examiner, “has been known to have outbursts while possessing a firearm.”

Also by Wednesday, police had not released any requested paperwork. And attempts to reach the driver of the garbage truck or anyone with Miami-Dade Solid Waste or its union spokesman, went unanswered.

Police say Benavides — who would have turned 55 on Christmas Day — lived in a West Kendall home with a wife he had divorced years earlier and two sons, 17 and 23. The home was about a mile from where his body was found at Southwest 84th Street and 161st Place. A person who answered the door at the home Thursday said no one wanted to talk.

Investigators believe Benavides shot his ex-wife, who hasn’t been named, after arguing with her some time during the evening of Dec. 19. Then, just past midnight after walking through the neighborhood, he climbed into the bin and shut the lid. From his home, he had to cross over Kendall Drive, head four blocks south, go another four blocks west, before finding the bin.

Miami-Dade Police are reviewing surveillance video taken from nearby homes to try and fill in some blanks. The truck driver discovered the body the next afternoon at 2:22 p.m. Dec. 20.

By then, police had been searching for Benavides for about 12 hours. He was wanted for the attempted murder of his ex-wife.

Martin said police found the gun Benavides used on himself inside the bin and that it matched forensically with the weapon used in the shooting of his wife.

Neighbors near where the body had been found were shocked. The trash bin belongs to an elderly couple, said Manju Matta, who has lived in the neighborhood for more than 30 years.

“It’s too close to home,” Matta said, standing in her doorway. “It’s scared me. It happened right in my neighborhood.”

Miami Herald Staff Writer Devoun Cetoute contributed to this report.

The Florida Department of Health offers a suicide prevention and crisis lifeline. Call or text 988 or reach out through chat by visiting 988lifeline.org/chat. Veterans can call 988 and press 1.