Teen buying vapes fatally shoots 19-year-olds when he doesn’t have cash, Florida cops say
A 17-year-old boy is accused of fatally shooting two 19-year-old men in a Florida neighborhood during a drug deal for vape pens that went wrong, a sheriff said.
On March 11, a boy was brought into the sheriff’s office after coming home flustered and telling his family something bad had happened, Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers said in a March 12 news conference streamed by WPEC.
The boy’s age and identity were not released by the sheriff’s office.
The boy told investigators he had been a witness to the shooting deaths of two 19-year-old men in the Vero Lake Estates neighborhood earlier that day, Flowers said.
The men were identified as Joseph Mitchel Cardella and Logan James Thompson, WPBF reported.
The bodies of the two, described as best friends by the sheriff, had been found near a vehicle that didn’t belong to anyone in the neighborhood that afternoon.
There was about $1,000 in cash on the ground by the bodies, Flowers said, and one of the men looked like he had been running away from the vehicle when he collapsed and died in the yard of a home.
They both had gunshot wounds, but there were no weapons found on their bodies or in the vehicle, the sheriff said.
The witness told investigators he had gone with 17-year-old Jaime C. Mosqueda, of Fellsmere, to buy 1,300 THC vape pens from the duo for $3,000, Flowers said.
“The kicker is, there is only about $1,000 on the ground out there,” Flowers said. “It’s clear that at least our suspect lured these guys down here with bad intentions. He shows up with a gun, he shows up with not enough money and the exact what happened in those moments while they got out of the car, we’re still working through that with our witness, but ultimately he fired many, many rounds at these two young men and took their lives unnecessarily.”
The sheriff said Mosqueda told his family he fired in self-defense, but Flowers again said neither of the 19-year-olds were armed.
The witness gave investigators a map to where officials said Mosqueda had tossed his gun after the shooting, Flowers said, and it was found by a deputy K-9 shortly after.
The sheriff said Mosqueda and members of his family were brought into the station around 1 a.m., and they had differing versions of what happened between the teen and the two men.
Mosqueda is charged with two counts of murder without premeditation and is being held in juvenile detention, Flowers said.
No charges have been announced for the witness, the sheriff said.
“The crazy thing to me here is we are talking about THC vape pens. These two kids, 19 years old, lost their lives over THC vape pens,” Flowers said. “It’s crazy.”
The sheriff said investigators are unsure why they picked the neighborhood as a place to meet, but said it may have just been out of convenience for its proximity to Interstate 95 and a wooded lot.
Investigators are also unsure how the three knew each other or how Mosqueda learned the 19-year-olds were selling vape pens, the sheriff said. The investigation remains ongoing.
Vero Lake Estates is about a 90-mile drive southeast from Orlando.
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