Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
By: EFE Posted Mar 28, 2023, 19:46 pm EDT
A man who, after being shot in 2010 inside his ice cream sales vehicle, wanted to seek justice into his own hands and ended up accused of murdering two Latino brothers, and trying to do the same with four others, was convicted Tuesday of first-degree murder. degree by a jury from Florida (USA).
The incident occurred in the town of Ruskin, in Hillsborough County, western Florida, when Michael Keetley, now 51, was beaten, shot and robbed by two masked men while working in his ice cream truck.
The assault provoked such a thirst for revenge in Keetley that, later, on Thanksgiving Day 2010, he shot six people he believed guilty of the robbery in a house, killing two of them, the brothers Sergio and Juan Guitrón.
Keetley’s first trial for the double murder ended in a mistrial in 2020 after a jury failed to agree on a verdict.
In the new trial, a jury found Keetley, who has already spent 12 years in prison, guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for the death of the Guitrón brothers and four counts of attempted murder of Daniel Beltrán, Gonzalo Guevara, Ramon Galan and Richard Cantu.
The defendant, who always maintained that he was innocent of the charges against him and that he was not the author of the shooting at a Ruskin home, could face a life sentence at the sentencing hearing scheduled for May 26.
Keetley was mugged and robbed while driving his ice cream truck and was reportedly shot five times by two masked men to make off with $12 worth of loot.
As a result of the shooting, Keetley suffered a lifelong disability.
According to police investigations, none of the six men had anything to do with the attack on the ice cream truck.
One of the prosecutors in charge of the case pointed out in the first trial that Keetly arrived at the home of the shooting dressed in black, with a T-shirt with the word “Sheriff” (sheriff) and asking for someone called “Creeper”.
He recounted that the Latinos, who were partying, because they were celebrating Thanksgiving the night before, thought he was an agent and tried to show their identification, but he didn’t wait and started shooting them one by one.
“He wanted revenge,” the prosecutor stressed.
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