A 36-year-old Cara­po man was beat­en to death while lim­ing near his home on Tues­day night.

Po­lice said Dar­ren Fran­cis, a dou­bles ven­dor, and a friend were lis­ten­ing to mu­sic from his white Mit­subishi Lancer along Race Course Road, Cara­po, at 9.22 pm, when they were ap­proached by two masked men, one of whom was hold­ing a piece of iron.

One of the men struck Fran­cis, who ran off. How­ev­er, the at­tack­ers chased Fran­cis and con­tin­ued to beat him, be­fore es­cap­ing through a near­by track.

Ari­ma po­lice were called in and they found Fran­cis’ body with wounds to his head. A dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer lat­er de­clared Fran­cis dead.

A car, be­lieved to be Fran­cis’, was al­so found on fire near­by but in­ves­ti­ga­tors said the dam­age to the ve­hi­cle made it dif­fi­cult to know for cer­tain.

Ari­ma Fire Of­fi­cers were called in to ex­tin­guish the car.

Re­gion II Homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors are con­tin­u­ing en­quiries.