FLORIDA~ More than 12 years after the 2010 shooting that killed two and injured four in Florida, a former ice cream truck driver was sentenced to life in prison on Friday. On two counts of murder and four counts of attempted murder, Michael Keetley was found guilty in March. Judge Christopher Sabella remarked, “This has been a very long road and a very difficult case.” What this case demonstrates to the victims is that justice, while often slow, is always done.
Quezada told NBC News before the sentencing that her birthday was on Friday and that her one wish since the night of the attack has been fulfilled: the monster who tore apart her close-knit family should spend the rest of his life in prison.
Keetley, 52, was found guilty on six counts, and Judge Sabella sentenced him to six consecutive terms of life in prison without parole. In November 2010 on the front porch of a house in Ruskin, Florida, six people were shot, two fatally (Juan, 28) and four more seriously (Sergio, 22) while they celebrated Thanksgiving.
The prosecution said Keetley’s attack was a case of mistaken identity and the lethal climax of his fixation on vengeance. Prosecutors claimed Keetley took matters into his own hands after being robbed and shot around a year prior to the murders and becoming unhappy with the official investigation into the robbery. The former ice cream vendor wrongly believed that a man who went by the name “Creeper” was responsible for the heist and was searching for him that November evening in 2010.
Prosecutors said the victims had nothing to do with Keetley’s robbery. Neither did the man known only as “Creeper,” who authorities say was not one of the six men shot at the Ruskin house.The defence maintained that Keetley was not capable of committing the crime due to injuries he acquired when he was shot and robbed months earlier, and that the survivors of the shooting had mistakenly identified the wrong guy. Here’s our defence: Michael Keetley is innocent because he had nothing to do with the crime. It was impossible for Michael Keetley to pull off. “He’s not medically competent,” said defence counsel John Grant.
Another defence attorney, Richard Escobar, claimed that the inquiry that followed the 2010 attack was “nothing short of a nightmare in and of itself.”A new trial and an acquittal were both denied by the court before the sentence was handed down on Friday.
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