This happened in the parking lot of my apartment complex. I moved from the apartment that was right in front of the event this year up the street to a different one in the same complex. Glad to see the gun laws prevent criminals from having them...
The detectives and police were at his apartment for like 15 hours on friday and wouldn't tell anyone a thing.
http://www.gainesvillesun.com/article/20080323/NEWS/803230318/1002/NEWS
The detectives and police were at his apartment for like 15 hours on friday and wouldn't tell anyone a thing.
http://www.gainesvillesun.com/article/20080323/NEWS/803230318/1002/NEWS
A witness has led Gainesville Police to a local businessman accused of fatally shooting an employee after a dispute over pay earlier this week.
The businessman and another man who worked for his tree service are accused of then hiding the body before police located the dead man in Levy County on Friday.
Corey B. Pryor, 38, and Bruce Randal Davis, 43, both of Gainesville, were being held at the Alachua County jail in the case Saturday morning, jail records showed.
Pryor is currently on state parole after being released from prison in April 2006 following a 1998 sentence on charges including aggravated assault, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.
Pryor is facing charges of murder, aggravated battery and possession of a gun by a convicted felon. Police arrested Davis as an accessory after the fact, alleging he helped Pryor to hide the body and to hide or destroy evidence in the shooting, according to jail records.
Officers have not identified the man who was killed pending next of kin notification and positive identification by the Medical Examiner's Office. But a police source confirmed the man was Vearl Ingram, 51, an employee along with Davis of Corey's Tree Service and Stump Removal.
Although the shooting apparently occurred Tuesday evening, police didn't learn about the incident until Thursday when a neighbor of Pryor's, who had witnessed the shooting, came forward, said Gainesville Police spokesman Lt. Keith Kameg.
The neighbor had been in the parking lot at Madison Pointe Apartments, 2701 NW 23rd Blvd., when he saw Pryor arguing with another man, police reported. The witness told police Pryor pulled out a gun. There was a struggle and the gun fired three to five times. The injured man fell, and Pryor, seeing his neighbor, tossed the gun to him and asked him to help load the wounded man into a vehicle, officers reported.
Kameg said the neighbor refused to help Pryor, put the gun down and left. The frightened witness later said he talked to his girlfriend, friends and parents about what had happened, and then spoke with attorneys before coming to police Thursday, according to police reports. Kameg said the man had nothing to do with the shooting, except for being a witness, or with what happened to the body afterward.
Officers received information from another man at the complex who also reported hearing shots and seeing Pryor pour a jug of bleach on the ground.
Police also found a substance that tests showed was blood at the spot where the neighbor said the attack occurred.
The information gave officers enough to convince them someone had been injured, but they still had no body or missing person reports.
"We were working a murder investigation for about 24 hours where we had almost every belief a murder had taken place without a body. The case was almost a backwards investigation," Kameg said. Detectives Mike Schentrup and Bennie Smith were among officers working on the investigation, he said.
Based on the information officers did have, police decided to stop Pryor's vehicle on Friday afternoon in north Gainesville. Driving Pryor's vehicle was Davis, who Kameg said immediately began talking about the murder.
Davis told police that Pryor and Ingram had argued because Ingram believed he was owed more money for his work. Davis said he last saw the two heading to Pryor's home, where Pryor had told the other man he would pay him with a check. Davis said that same evening, Pryor called him and told him to come to his apartment. When he arrived, Pryor confessed to the killing and asked for his help in getting rid of the body, Davis said.
Pryor had hidden the man's body in a yard in the 2200 block of NW 9th Place under some bushes, according to police reports. The two men put the body on a tarp and then drove to an isolated hunting camp in a swampy area in Levy County between Bronson and Otter Creek, police said.
Davis told police he thought animals would dismember Ingram's body before anyone located the man's remains.
After he was stopped by police, Davis gave police the dead man's wallet and a bloody shirt that Davis said Pryor had asked him to get rid of.
When police stopped Pryor's vehicle, Davis said he was driving Pryor's vehicle to the Ocala National Forest after Pryor called earlier that day and told him to burn it.
Pryor denied any involvement in the man's death, police stated in a report.
Pryor has a prior criminal history with 33 felony charges and 10 felony convictions, Gainesville Police reported. He had been accused of murder and aggravated assault in 1997 in South Florida, was acquitted of the murder charge and convicted on the other charge. Florida Department of Corrections records show Pryor is set to finish his supervised parole in 2009.
"Our suspect has an extensive criminal history that is punctuated by numerous acts of violence. Could it have all ended if he had been in prison for all of the 33 felonies he had been charged with? Probably. We'll never know," Kameg said.
No bond had been set for Pryor Saturday morning. A $50,000 bond was pending for Davis.
