The Killing of Danne Frazier: Prosecution offers evidence, defense claims false confession

The first-degree murder trial of Jo Samuel Lobato started April 5 and has continued this week at the Bartow Courthouse as the prosecution presents its evidence against him in the killing of Danne Frazier.

Lobato and his brother are accused of luring Frazier, 21, to a remote site for a romantic meet-up, then killing him and dumping his body in a citrus grove near Lake Wales. If convicted, the State Attorney’s Office has filed paperwork saying it intends to seek the death penalty in the cases against both of the Lobato brothers.

While Lobato was originally charged with six crimes after his arrest, he was later indicted on eight charges, including first-degree murder.

In the indictment, he also faces robbery with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit first degree murder, accessory after the fact to a capital felony, burglary of an occupied conveyance, grand theft of a motor vehicle, tampering with physical evidence and criminal use of personal identification information.

Prosecution opens

During opening statements, the prosecution started with some background for the jury on the circumstances that led to the meeting of Frazier and Jo Lobato.

"Danne Frazier was a young guy,” said Assistant State Attorney Lauren Mikaela Perry. “He was living with his parents, working at a Publix warehouse. He got himself a car, a little Chevy and was on social media like a lot of people are.”

“On Facebook, he reached out and started messaging with the defendant.” she said. “Danne was gay, and Danne was looking for something: relationship, sex, maybe both.

“The defendant didn’t want that,” Perry said. “He did want his car.”

On Nov. 3, 2020, Frazier's mother had been in contact with him and he had gone to work that night at his job at a Publix warehouse in Lakeland. He left work about 2 a.m. and was last seen at the WaWa gas station on Edgewood Drive in Lakeland at 2:20 a.m.

The next day, his mother had not heard from him, which was unusual because he usually came home right after work. So she started looking for her son, and quickly become concerned after she discovered several declined transactions on her son’s debit card. She then reported him missing to the Lakeland Police Department.

“Where’s Danne?” Perry said to the jury.

Police looked through his financial records and social media accounts and asked other law enforcement agencies to look for him and his car, a silver Chevy Impala. Eventually, a Flagler County sheriff’s deputy saw the car driving erratically and pulled over the vehicle.

Investigators learned the car’s driver was Jo Lobato and his passenger was Angel Lobato, who stayed with the car while his brother ran from the traffic stop. Angel Lobato was later let go and the car was taken to Lakeland for police to process it for evidence that law enforcement hoped would help find Frazier.

Police also continued to look through Frazier's financial records.

Several days later, after noticing a flock of vultures, two surveyors found Frasier’s decomposing body about 40 yards off Helicopter Road near Tindel Camp Road in a pile of citrus cuttings.

“We found Danne,” Perry said. “This investigation goes from missing to murder.”

From there, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office followed the financial records and saw a Cash App transaction between Frazier’s bank account and Angel Lobato.

Then in surveillance video from a Bartow Circle K where Frazier’s card was declined, investigators saw a Chevy containing the Lobato brothers with Scott Engle, who prosecutors said attempted to help them use Frazier’s cards to get money.

Investigators eventually decided to interview the defendant Jo Lobato to try to find out what happened to Frazier.

“So he told police, that ... they got Danne to meet them down at a lake,” Perry said. “They’re in the car together and that’s when he and his brother attacked.”

Perry said the jury would see the damage to the car during that attack and hear the defendant’s statements to police.

“What you’re going to hear from the medical examiner is that Danne sustained multiple blunt force impacts to the head,” Perry said. “And what you are going to hear is that Danne was stabbed in the trachea leaving an incise wound to his trachea,” she said.

“You’re also going to hear that when he was stabbed, the weapon he used broke off in his neck and was still found inside him when the medical examiner was doing the autopsy,” she said.

“Based on the evidence you’ll hear, you are going to find that Jo Labato met Danne online, decided to kill him and he and his brother viciously attacked him so they could take his car and take what belonged to him.

“And then they dumped him in a field and left him for the birds,” Perry said.

Defense opens

In stark contrast, defense attorney Robert Anthony Norgard said his client “Mr. Lobato, Jo Labato, had nothing to do with the murder of Danne Frazier.”

”He had nothing to do with the robbery of Danne Frazier,” Norgard said. “He had nothing to do with what is called burglary of an occupied vehicle; which was the actually entering the car while somebody was in it, which in this case was Danne Frazier. He was not involved in the burglary of that occupied vehicle.

“And one of the charges that has to do with tampering with evidence has to do with somebody doing something and getting rid of the knife,” he said. “Jo Lobato had nothing to do with that.

“What he did have something to do with was after the fact when his brother Angel Lobato comes to him and tells him what he had done and shows up with Danne Frazier’s car,” Norgard said. 

That’s when Jo Lobato and Engle became accessories after the fact, the defense attorney said.

Norgard said the statement Jo Lobato made after being taken into custody is the state’s primary evidence, but “the problem with the state’s reliance on that statement is that for various reasons Mr. Lobato gave what is known as a false confession.”

He then suggested what circumstances led up to the statement, including “some general things about his life and his background.” He said the nature of the relationship between Jo Lobato and Frazier and the role of his brother will also help the jury understand the false confession.

“After the fact,” Jo Lobato got involved to protect his brother, perhaps share the blame and to try to minimize his brother’s involvement, Norgard said.

Norgard then explained the defendant had a “chaotic” family history. He said Jo Lobato endured an abusive childhood. 

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He lived in 17 different homes with multiple parents, including biological parents and stepparents between Polk County and West Virginia. He attended 16 different schools, mostly in Polk County, and during the various moves the brothers were often living in separate homes. 

As an infant, his mother was imprisoned, and he lived with a grandmother. In another home, he was subjected to mental, emotional and physical abuse and “literally tortured” by having his hand held above a hot stove for punishment.

In the years before the killing, he was made to participate in satanic rituals, which involved the use of drugs, until finally he and his brother left the home to stay with a relative.

By August 2020, Jo Lobato attempted suicide by slitting his wrist, Norgard said.

Citing the statements Jo Lobato made to police, Norgard said he referred to “bigger guys” taking advantage of him sexually as another motive for the brothers to protect one another from men seeking sex.

Prosecution witnesses

At the trial earlier this week, the prosecution called law enforcement officers and crime scene technicians from Lakeland and the Flagler and Polk County sheriff’s offices as witnesses to present evidence.

Norgard asked a crime scene technician from the sheriff’s office if there was any evidence collected that ties the defendant to the crime scene. But she said she had no personal knowledge of anything left behind by a potential perpetrator for her to collect as evidence.

She also did not find a shoe impression on the ground of any value because there was a lot of sandy soil, and a lot of grass covering the area as well as cactus. Also, no body hair was found nor contact fibers collected.

Vegetation was collected and touch DNA swabs were done to the victim’s hands, she said.

The prosecution also called the surveyors who found Frazier’s body on Nov. 10, 2020, who described what they saw.

Witnesses said Frazier’s body was clothed in a green Publix T-shirt and boxer shorts.

They also called Jo Lobato’s former girlfriend, who had been asked to arrange a ride for “JoJo” from Daytona Beach to Lake Wales during November 2020. She had a friend pick him up and that was prior to her giving a statement to police.

The state also called Frazier’s mother, who gave details about trying to locate her son unsuccessfully by phone and then noticing the declined charges.

When Engle took the witness stand, the Circle K surveillance video was played and he confirmed the movement of himself and the Lobato brothers at the gas station, both outside and inside the store, during two visits there on Nov. 4, 2020.

He also told Assistant State Attorney Mark Levine he was expecting to get $20 by helping the brothers get money via Fraizer’s debit cards. Engle also told Levine he was unaware that a murder had taken place and did not find it unusual that the debit card was not in the Lobatos names.

Levine said to Engle he was charged with six felonies, including accessory to a first-degree murder, which can be punishable by up to 30 years in prison, for his activities following the homicide. Engle said he gave investigators his cell phone, which convinced the detective his GPS location was not at the location of the murder.

When Norgard cross-examined Engle, who remains out of jail on bond, he mostly asked about a plea agreement and the lengthy prison sentence he could face if he went to trial.

Levine had also said the State Attorney’s Office offered him an agreement, which he signed on March 28, with terms saying the accessory and grand theft charges would be dropped but he would still have to serve five years in state prison for the other four charges if he testified in the Lobato trial and met the rest of the terms of the plea bargain.

Engle said he was asked by one of the brothers to clean the windows with a squeegee at the gas station, both inside and outside of the car.

When Engle asked what happened to the broken window on the driver’s side of the car, one of the brothers said they were messing around and broke it. The three also talked about setting up a Cash App account on the Lobatos’ phones to potentially use to withdraw Frazier’s money.

Levine played a social media post containing a short video of the three men in the stolen car, which showed a white folder on the backseat stained with a red substance.

Trial break

While the jury got Wednesday off, the trial was expected to resume at 8:30 a.m. Thursday. The prosecution could finish offering its evidence by Friday. The medical examiner is one of the witnesses expected to testify before they close their case. The defense would then have the opportunity to present evidence to the jury.

Angel Lobato is also set for trial later this year on first-degree murder among other felony charges in connection with Frazier’s homicide. He has a status hearing scheduled for April 19.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Jo Lobato on trial for 2020 killing of Danne Frazier in Lake Wales