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Posted on 08/08/2004 7:01:26 PM PDT by ovrtaxt
Police: Xbox Theft Spurred Fla. Slayings
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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) - An ex-convict who blamed a young woman for taking his video game system and clothes recruited three teenagers to stab and beat her and five others to death, investigators said Sunday.
The 22-year-old woman was singled out for an attack so vicious that even dental records were useless in trying to identify her. Some of the victims were attacked in their sleep, according to authorities.
The victims' bodies were found Friday in a blood-spattered home.
All four suspects have been charged with first-degree murder and armed burglary, the Volusia County sheriff's department said.
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All four were jailed in Daytona Beach while awaiting bail hearings on Monday. Johnson wants prosecutors to seek the death penalty, saying, "These families will never get over this."
The attack was the culmination of events revolving around a nearby vacant home owned by one of the victim's grandparents and used by squatters as a party house. The four men and two women who were slain had reported being harassed by the alleged assailants.
Investigators struggling to find a motive for the slayings believe the victims were killed over the theft of some clothes and an Xbox game system owned by Victorino, the sheriff's office said.
All four suspects were armed with aluminum bats when Victorino kicked in the locked front door, according to arrest records. The group wore black clothes and scarves on their faces, grabbed knives inside and attacked victims in different rooms of the three-bedroom house, authorities said.
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The 6-foot-5 suspect Victorino has spent eight of the last 11 years in prison and was arrested for a probation violation eight days before the killings.
Hunter, who was with Victorino at the time, agreed to accompany investigators for questioning. Police said he admitted his role in the slayings and identified the other two suspects.
All four suspects appeared before a judge Saturday without attorneys. They will have a chance to ask for court-appointed lawyers on Monday.
Hunter, a high school wrestler, moved out of his family's house in May but recently agreed to return home for his senior year.
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The sheriff's office has identified five of the victims as Michelle Ann Nathan, 19; Anthony Vega, 34; Roberto "Tito" Gonzalez, 28, who recently moved from New York; Belanger's boyfriend Francisco Ayo Roman, 30; and Jonathan Gleason, 18.
The sixth victim was believed to be Erin Belanger, whose grandparents own the vacant home and spent the summer in Maine.
Joe Abshire, Belanger's brother-in-law, said she described heading to the vacant house to go swimming one day and finding about six people living there. The squatters were kicked out, but deputies were called to the grandparents' house six time in 10 days before the killings. The victims reported a tire-slashing at their home and a threat.
The squatters warned Belanger that "they were going to come back there and beat her with a baseball bat when she was sleeping," Abshire, who is married to Erin's sister Jennifer, told The Sun of Lowell, Mass., for Sunday editions.
Victorino complained that his belongings were removed from the grandparents' house while he was in jail following a July 29 arrest for battery, Johnson said. He said Victorino found his things boxed up at the victims' house and took them after the killings.
The bodies were discovered in the rental home in the working-class community about 25 miles north of Orlando after one of Nathan's co-workers at a Burger King asked someone to visit the house because she had not arrived for work.
I want to know who this judge was.
This is not a re-post, the story has been developed since the last one was posted. New info.
I came very close to having something like this happen to me years ago. What saved me was a double barreled 12ga shotgun.
It does answer the question that I got flamed for asking on the earlier thread. Thanks.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1187415/posts
WE've been discussing the murder on this thread since the other day.
I just posted Victorino's info from the FDC's supervised population site.
He was on probation until 2010 for felony aggravated battery with intent to harm.
I rarely get surprised. I am surprised. No, I am astonished. But then again have you ever LOOKED at the games your kids are playing on these machines?
Mark my words, the defense will claim that this is a case of X-Box Induced Hyper-Violence Dyscontrol Syndrome. I just made this up, but I promise you the shysters will blame Microsoft.
All this brutality and savagery over a stupid xbox? Give these four losers the death penalty. I wish Florida still had old Sparky in use, these thugs need to feel a little pain before they go straight to hell.
One more reason to keep a firearm handy........
Hate crime? Race related? Nah, just another day in Florida.
Animals...ALL OF THEM!@!! They wouldn't have been that upset if someone killed one of thei kids! But take thier XBOX.....WOW...definitely worth KILLING for! UNCIVILIZED ANIMALS.
"Undated police booking photos released by the Volusia County Sheriff's Office August 8, 2004 showing murder suspects (clockwise from top L) Troy Victorino, Jerone Hunter, Michael Salas and Robert Cannon. Volusia County police officials said that the four men used aluminum baseball bats to murder six people and a dog in Deltona, Florida on August 6. Photo by Reuters (Handout)"
big fat fast bullets do it even better...vote 10mm!
4 attackers = 7+rounds in a standard 1911. I'd feel much better with 15+1 in a reliable 10mm.
Although I'd feel even better with an ak & 30 round magazine...
This Victorino guy's record is probably a real eye-opener. Just arrested on the 29th for battery.
Aren't these voilent types supposed to be kept away from the rest of us?
And these same judges will discriminate and legislate against a gun owner if given a chance.
"having something like this happen to me years ago" you also took someone's xbox?
Also EXACTLY the folks the democrats hire to "help" people vote democrat.
'Tweren't the Hangin' Judge.
Now the left will probably outlaw baseball bats.
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