Alleged murderer of former Florida state senator’s son caught by U.S. marshals, police say

The death of former state Sen. Daphne Campbell’s son was the result of a love triangle with a twist, according to state prosecutors: The woman who shot him was the jilted ex-girlfriend of a woman who spent the night in Jason Campbell’s bed.

On Monday, federal marshals found Lakoria Shamece Washington, 24, in Port Orange, Florida, and took her into custody. She has been charged with the first-degree murder of Campbell, 23. By Tuesday, Washington had not yet been extradited to Miami-Dade.

The Miami-Dade Police Department, which announced Washington’s arrest, cited Marsy’s Law and did not name the woman who was at Jason Campbell’s apartment when he was murdered. But Washington’s arrest warrant claims the woman barely escaped harm by running out of the apartment and hiding in a laundry room when Washington showed up, unannounced, with a gun.

“She then heard a gunshot. She did not witness the shooting or anyone leaving the scene,” Miami-Dade Detective Raquel Mascarena wrote in the report.

In 2015, Washington was arrested on charges including grand theft auto. She was sentenced to a year in jail and fined $853, court records show. In 2019, she was arrested on a charge of possessing marijuana. She was fined $603.

Campbell was found shot to death in the parking lot of the Monte Carlo Apartment complex at 494 NW 165th St.

At the time, Daphne Campbell, a former state senator and three-term house member, posted about her son on her Facebook page, writing, “I did not know a mother should bury a child, rather a child should bury their parents.”

Police found Campbell at around 8:30 a.m. on June 1 and then followed a trail of blood back to the apartment where the shooting happened.

There, they found a woman who said she was the ex-girlfriend of Washington. She told officers that Washington had come to the apartment and forced her way inside with a gun.

The woman had run from the apartment and hid in a laundry room, police said. She heard a gunshot but did not see the shooting or anyone leave.

A surveillance camera had seen a woman enter the apartment complex minutes before the shooting, who was identified as Washington, police said.

Miami Herald Reporter Carli Teproff contributed to this report.