Half-Headed Man Arrested (Again) for Attempted Murder, Arson

Let's get this over with: The photo above is real, the man is alive, and his name is Carlos Rodriguez. He is 31 years old and goes by the nickname "Half Head," and the reason is obvious. Half Head lives in Miami and got into a car accident when he was high some years ago. This forced doctors to remove part of his brain and then fuse his skull back together.

So, without a full brain, Half Head seems to have issues with impulse control and can't keep himself out of trouble. Today he's back in jail.

On Monday, Half Head was arrested for two felony counts of attempted murder and one count of first-degree arson, according to the Miami-Dade Department of Corrections. 

Half Head first came to New Times' attention in November 2010, when we published his mug shot after he'd been arrested for soliciting a prostitute. In a Miami Police arrest report, his distinguishing characteristics included having "half a head."

This then catapulted Half Head to a brief period of worldwide infamy, and people flooded New Times' inboxes with angry letters claiming we had faked the mug shot.

But, as it turns out, Rodriguez maintained a small channel on YouTube, where he explains what happened to him.


"I was barred-out on drugs," he says in one clip. "And I was driving. And I hit a pole, flew out the front window, and landed on my head."

Since then, it appears Half Head hasn't been able to stop himself from breaking the law. In 2010, we wrote that he'd been arrested "quite a lot" for a bevy of alleged crimes, including disorderly intoxication, soliciting a prostitute, possession of weed, and burglary. He seems to have a propensity for violence: In 2014, he was arrested on battery charges. But still, given his physical situation, it's pretty tough to feel anything but bad for the guy.

He's apparently still really into weed. Here he is smoking a blunt alongside a river and declaring himself a "burnout."


This week, Rodriguez was arrested again on felony charges. It's not clear exactly what happened, because police didn't immediately respond to requests for an incident report.

He's being held on $30,000 bond, but, thankfully, he's already been transferred from jail to Mercy Hospital.

Update: According to an arrest report, Half Head was found attempting to light his mattress on fire around 2:30 yesterday. He lived in a duplex.

"I wanted to burn down my house so I could build a new, two-story house, and I don't care if there was people in the other side of the house because it wasn't going to reach them," he allegedly told police.

But two people were living in the other apartment at the time, which means Half Head has been charged with attempted murder. Police say they arrived to find a burn on the right side of the mattress, and said that no other sources of heat could have accidentally started the blaze.

"The fire was set within an occupied dwelling, posing an immediate threat to the lives and safety of the occupants," police wrote.