PASADENA, Md. (WJZ) — A beloved former principal in Anne Arundel County, who spent three decades in the school system, has been murdered in Florida.

William Norman, 76, was the first principal of Chesapeake High School in Pasadena before he retired to Tampa.

Police in Broward County found Norman floating in a canal with a plastic bag tied over his head.

Two men are charged with his murder. One of them rented a house from Norman.

A friend says there was trouble between landlord and tenant.

“It was vacant but then he said, `I let these men go in’ and then he said they weren’t paying him. He’s very generous, I think sometimes to a fault,” said Rosemary Bender.

Norman was principal at Chesapeake until 1983. The auditorium there is named for him.