Julio Cesar Ramos, 45

An illegal alien – who has been deported more than a dozen times – is being charged with first-degree murder after allegedly beating a woman to death when she took him in, gave him work and treated him like family.

Paulette Locklear, 64, and several members of her church built a small house on her property in Fayetteville, N.C., for 45-year-old Julio Cesar Ramos of Honduras, North Carolina's WRAL-TV reported.

Locklear's nephew, Jeremy Brewington, said Locklear reached out to Ramos.

"The family just helped him any way we could," Brewington said. "He would come and help us work, and we would pay him. He's just been sort of part of the family for a long time." Locklear's brother, Paul Brewington, said Ramos was homeless and living in the woods when his sister gave him a place to stay, according to the report.

"We just started helping him and giving him food and giving him clothes and stuff," he said. "That's what she was doing to this fellow – just giving him a helping hand."

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They said it wasn't unusual for Ramos to disappear for 6 months and then come back.

But on Tuesday Ramos began shattering windows and trying to break into her home. She called 9-1-1 just before being beaten to death with a blunt object outside of her house.

Police arrived just as Ramos was fleeing the crime scene.

Authorities said he had been deported at least 12 times over a period of 20 years. He kept sneaking back into the U.S., WRAL reported.

Debbie Tanna, a spokeswoman for the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office said investigators are unsure of Ramos' real identity.

"We're having trouble determining exactly what his name is because, during the times he was deported, he used several different aliases," she said.

Family members said they didn't know he had been deported so many times. Jeremy Brewington indicated that Ramos had a temper.

"We didn't think he would do anything of this nature. We didn't really see that in him," he said. "He would get angry sometimes and would leave ... for a while. (He) would come back, and we would take him in and help him any way we could."

Ramos is being held without bond in the Cumberland County Detention Center.

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