An Army vet shot dead in Florida on Veteran’s Day last year was killed after he stopped to help a stranded motorist.Cruz-Echevarria had stopped to help the driver who got stuck in the mud. The truck turned out to be stolen and Cruz-Echevarria’s vehicle was later found burned in Apopka.
He didn’t know then that the stranded driver he stopped to help was a hitman who was driving to his house to kill him, the station reported.
"I've been a cop for 32 years and this is one of the most heinous, despicable, cowardly acts that I've ever witnessed," Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said.
Authorities said their lengthy investigation of the homicide showed Cruz-Echevarria was killed to prevent him from testifying in a May 2017 road rage case.
The defendant in that case, Kelsey McFoley, 28, faced a long prison sentence for allegedly pulling a gun on Cruz-Echevarria at a traffic light, the station reported.
To avoid prison, McFoley was accused of hiring Benjamin Bascom, 24, to kill Cruz-Echevarria, according to the station.
They were charged with murder, along with McFoley's girlfriend, Melissa Roque, 21.
Investigators said she assisted McFoley and Bascom the night of the murder, according to the station.
McFoley was a “thug of thugs,” Mr Chitwood said, with a lengthy criminal record that showed his capacity for violence. After the road rage incident, McFoley was charged with aggravated assault and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon. He was slated to go to trial in early December 2017. To avoid going back to prison, captain Brian Henderson said, McFoley hired someone to take Cruz-Echevarria out.
That is where Benjamin Bascom came in. The 24-year-old had a reputation as a killer, Mr Henderson said, adding that investigators have tied him to open murder cases in Orange County, Florida. Bascom and McFoley were “criminal associates,” investigators said, and McFoley reached out over the phone, offering Bascom money to silence Cruz-Echevarria.
Over the course of a few weeks, Bascom and McFoley, along with Melissa Rios Roque, 21 – who investigators believe is pregnant with McFoley’s child – plotted to kill the army veteran, authorities say. The young woman’s job was to help stalk the victim and to help Bascom escape once the man was dead. McFoley snagged the man’s home address from court documents in the road rage case. The suspects bought a stolen car and began stalking Cruz-Echevarria, driving past his home and staking out the area in Daytona Beach, Mr Henderson said.
