Angel Arellano and Epimenio Leal were convicted in the murder of a taxi driver in Florida. According to court documents Angel Arellano who was fifteen and Epimenio Leal who was seventeen would shoot a cab driver in the head in the course of a robbery. According to police the two teen killers called the cab driver in a remote location and when the victim showed up he was fatally shot. Angel Arellano and Epimenio Leal were each sentenced to forty years in prison
Angel Arellano 2023 Information
ID Photo
DC Number:
Q70580
Name:
ARELLANO, ANGEL D
Race:
WHITE
Sex:
MALE
Birth Date:
08/04/2004
Initial Receipt Date:
10/02/2019
Current Facility:
Florida State Prison
Current Custody:
CLOSE
Current Release Date:
04/15/2058
Epimenio Leal 2023 Information
ID Photo
DC Number:
A70580
Name:
LEAL, EPIMENIO
Race:
WHITE
Sex:
MALE
Birth Date:
12/21/2001
Initial Receipt Date:
10/02/2019
Current Facility:
Taylor Annex
Current Custody:
CLOSE
Current Release Date:
04/15/2058
Angel Arellano And Epimenio Leal Other News
ee County Sheriff’s Office shared on social media two teens have been sentenced for shooting and killing a male taxi driver in Lehigh Acres in 2018.
Angel Arellano, 15, and Epimenio Leal, 17, were sentenced Wednesday to 40 years in prison for the murder of Hinso Estreplit, a self-employed taxi driver.
Both teens pled no contest to and found guilty of charges for First-Degree Murder and Robbery With A Firearm.
In April 2018, Arellano and Leal called for taxi to a remote road in Lehigh Acres, luring a taxi driver to the location. Both teens went up to the driver, shooting and killing him. Then, they stole the victim’s wallet, phone and a metal box containing money.
Judge Bruce Kyle served the sentencing for Arellano and Leal, while Assistant State Attorney Andreas Gardiner of the LCSO homicide unit and Assistant State Attorney Jennifer Justham prosecuted the cases.
The two teens face 10 years of probation following time served. The sentence also carries a 25-year minimum mandatory requirement based upon Florida’s 10-20-Life law. Additionally, because they are juveniles, each are entitled to a court review of their sentences after serving 25 years per Florida’s sentencing laws related to the sentencing of juveniles as adults. Both teens were sentenced in Lee County court.
Angel Arellano Update
A state correctional officer is recovering after being attacked late last month at Sumter Correctional Institution, the Florida Department of Corrections announced Friday
Six inmates at the Bushnell-area prison were charged in the April 19 attack on the unidentified officer, the agency said.
“I want to commend the staff and inmates who came to this officer’s aid during this vicious attack,” Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Mark Inch said in a statement. “Our officer showed courage and perseverance under extreme duress. I appreciate the quick and thorough investigation into this incident by the Inspector General, which led to the arrest of these inmates.”
A statement from the agency said “multiple inmates” attacked the officer at 2 p.m. Some inmates helped the officer. The attack was brought under control by prison officers at the lockup, which has 1,639-inmate capacity.
The six inmates were charged with aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer, depriving an officer of means of protection/communication, and false mprisonment.
They were taken to the Sumter County Jail and identified as:
Tristen Stewart
Julien Guevara
Jacob Steinmetz
Gregory Rheams
Angel Arellano
Jarahmeel King
“The correctional officer was transported to an area hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries and has since been discharged,” the statement addedd. “The dorm involved in this incident is not under medical isolation or medical quarantine. The entire facility remains on restricted movement.”
Two Lehigh Acres teens, who were 16 and 13 when they killed a taxi driver in 2018, will serve 40-year sentences in his death.
Epimenio Leal, 17, and Angel Arellano, 15, pleaded guilty Thursday, and Circuit Judge Bruce Kyle immediately sentenced them. They had been charged with first-degree murder and robbery with a firearm.
According to court documents, Hinso Estriplet was a 46-year-old self-employed taxi driver. He advertised his work on a website and on Facebook.
The boys called Estriplet for a ride in an attempt to rob him. Then, lured to a remote Lehigh Acres spot, both shot him, police said.
The Office of the State Attorney said they took his wallet, phone and a metal box containing money.
They left with a waiting friend, Ricky Ligonde, 20 at the time of the murder.
Ligonde pleaded guilty to second-degree murder with a firearm and robbery with a firearm in March. Kyle sentenced him to 20 years on each count, to be served concurrently.
According to his arrest affidavit, Ligonde drove the pair after the robbery, having full knowledge of it prior to it happening, and received $40.
Police arrested Leal and Arellano a month later. Court records indicate they had the guns, later determined used in the killing, cocaine and drug paraphernalia with them.
Prior to the pair’s charges, the most recent child charged on first-degree murder charges was a 13-year-old in 2015. Joel Munoz was indicted after killing a homeless man in a wooded area of Cape Coral. A plea agreement in exchange for a guilty plea lowered the charge to second-degree murder. He is serving a 25-year sentence.
Because they are juveniles, the state attorney said, Leal and Arellano are entitled to a court review of their sentences after they serve 25 years, as per Florida’s sentencing laws related to the sentencing of juveniles as adults.
Assistant State Attorney Andreas Gardiner of the office’s Homicide Unit and Assistant State Attorney Jennifer Justham prosecuted the cases.
Jonathan Arce was fourteen years old when he murdered his elderly neighbour. According to court documents Jonathan Arce broke into the home next door and was in the process of robbing it when the elderly woman came home. Arce responded by stabbing the woman over a hundred times causing her death. Jonathan Arce was initially sentenced to life in prison this was later reduced to seventy five years. This teen killer current release date is 2069.
Jurors took only an hour Friday to find an Oviedo teenager guilty of first-degree murder in the stabbing and bludgeoning death of his 68-year-old neighbor. Jonathan Arce, 16, was immediately sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for the slaying of retired librarian June Stillman Because he was 14 at the time of the slaying, that was the only sentence possible. The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that no one under the age of 17 should be given the death penalty.
Arce, who had spent much of the weeklong trial with his head bowed, showed no emotion. He did not testify. In fact, defense attorney Landon Miller offered no evidence. He had listed a Maitland psychologist, Michael K. Johnson, as a witness but did not call him. Johnson would have testified that Arce had an IQ of 70, Miller said. Although the trial is over, key questions remain: Why did Arce kill Stillman, his neighbor who lived two doors down, and why was the attack so brutal? What made a slight boy who stood just 4 feet 9 inches tall so angry that he left Stillman with 115 wounds, more than 80 of them cuts and punctures? Stillman bled to death on her garage floor March 10, 1998.
Later that morning, Arce was discovered behind the wheel of her Toyota Corolla, trying futilely to back out of her driveway. Police found the victim’s money, including a 1925 silver dollar, in his pockets. They found her jewelry and blank checks in his house. Two knives and several garden tools, including an ax, a hoe, a shovel and shears, many with blood on them, were found scattered near the body. Medical Examiner Sara Irrgang said it was impossible to say which ones had been used in the killing. The victim’s blood proved to be an effective weapon for prosecutors, who used DNA analysis and bloody shoeprints to prove that Arce was the only possible killer. A trail of blood indicated the attack started in the kitchen, then moved to the garage, where it appeared Stillman either touched or was pushed into three walls and may have twice tried to get outside.
After she pressed unsuccessfully against the main garage door, she circled back to a side door near her washer and dryer, said Leroy Parker, a crime scene expert with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. That door was covered with blood from someone pressing against it, Parker said. There also was a bloody smear on the doorjamb. That smear suggests Stillman may have gotten partway out the door but was dragged back inside, said Assistant State Attorney Charley Tabscott. “I knew my mother was a courageous person,” said daughter Beth McGreggor. “This just reinforces that.” Miller on Friday conceded that Arce was the killer.
However, he argued that the boy went into a killing “frenzy” and was guilty only of second-degree murder or manslaughter. A second-degree murder conviction would have sent Arce, whose only previous crime was skipping school, to prison for as little as 22 years. It is not clear now exactly what will happen to Arce, who has grown 4 inches since his arrest but is still a tiny 5 feet 3 and 110 pounds. He is being put on suicide watch at the Seminole County Jail. He will be transferred to a state prison in the next few weeks. Arce’s pastor, Hector Santiago of Mision Christiana Hispana, visited the defendant Thursday. “Spiritually he is strong,” Santiago said. “Sometimes he cries, but he’s clear in terms of whatever decision comes, he knows God is with him.” Asked if the boy had expressed any remorse, Santiago said, “The only thing he continues to say is that God has forgiven him.
Jonathan Arce, the slight Oviedo teenager charged with killing a 68-year-old neighbor who trusted him to watch her cat, does not know how the retired librarian died, his attorney said Monday.
Arce, 16, went into shock and blacked out during a struggle between the two, Landon Miller told jurors on the opening day of Arce’s trial. He is charged with first-degree murder.
Arce is accused of killing June Stillman, a retired University of Central Florida librarian, on March 10, 1998. She bled to death on her garage floor, suffering more than 80 stab and puncture wounds.
Miller’s blackout theory is new and varies wildly from what Arce told police the day of the slaying.
Arce, who was 14 at the time, initially said he was ordered inside Stillman’s house by a masked person armed with a gun and knife.
The hooded stranger held him hostage for about two hours, then let him go, he said.
Arce later changed his statement, telling police he stabbed Stillman to death after she came at him with a knife. That confession, however, has been thrown out, so jurors will not hear it.
What they will hear about is a wealth of physical evidence. Assistant State Attorney Charley Tabscott said blood stains prove that Arce and Stillman struggled in the kitchen and that Stillman was attacked at least three more times at various locations in the garage.
Her injuries suggest a monumental struggle. She had 36 defensive cuts to her hands, and one of her fingertips was amputated, Tabscott said.
The handyman who discovered her body peered through a garage window. “He sees blood all over. He sees debris, garden tools, trash cans — various things — broken pots all over,” Tabscott said.
That witness, William Benton, 50, is to be the state’s lead witness today.
A note left on Stillman’s kitchen table suggests she discovered several blank checks and pieces of jewelry missing.
Police theorize that she confronted Arce.
Miller said Arce was walking to the school bus stop when Stillman invited him inside.
They argued, Miller said, and that escalated to “physical combat.” Stillman grabbed a knife and attacked Arce several times, he said.
Arce suffered a cut to his hand then went into shock and blacked out, Miller said.
“The next thing Arce remembers, he is standing in the garage. Mrs. Stillman was on the ground. She was indeed dead,” Miller said.
Miller did not say his client was innocent, but asked jurors to find the teenager guilty of “something less” than first-degree murder.
Joshua Phillips was fourteen years old when he murdered an eight year old girl. According to court documents Joshua Phillips and the little girl were in his bedroom when he would struck the girl with a baseball bat and strangled her. This teen killer would hide the body of the child underneath his waterbed and a number of days later his mother would notice a leak and come upon the child’s body. Joshua Phillips would be sentenced to life in prison without parole
Joshua Phillips 2023 Information
DC Number:
J11775
Name:
PHILLIPS, JOSHUA E
Race:
WHITE
Sex:
MALE
Birth Date:
03/17/1984
Initial Receipt Date:
08/26/1999
Current Facility:
CROSS CITY C.I.
Current Custody:
CLOSE
Current Release Date:
SENTENCED TO LIFE
Joshua Phillips Other News
She’d pull four plates, four forks and four knives from the cupboard and then it would hit her: There were only three in the family now.
Jessie Clifton was 11 when 20 years ago Saturday her 8-year-old sister, Maddie, whom she considered to be her very best friend, seemingly vanished from the suburban Jacksonville neighborhood they grew up in. From that moment on, no one’s life in the Clifton family would be the same.
Three years later when Jessie was 14, she finally mastered pulling plates and silverware in groups of three. But then her mother, Sheila Clifton, haunted by the home across the street, moved out. Then it was just the two of them: Steve Clifton and his daughter Jessie.
The years that immediately followed 1998 are largely gone from Jessie Clifton’s memory. Not gone are the chilling details — faces, expressions, sounds, actions, feelings of what was unfolding within the family, within the Lakewood neighborhood starting on that Nov. 3 evening when Maddie didn’t join the family at the dinner table.
“It almost starts to feel like a really bad dream until I go home and the little things remind me,” Jessie Clifton said last week. “It’s like you start to forget what your life was like because it was so long ago.”
Maddie’s story, the story of a missing girl, brought Jacksonville to its knees.
It was Election Day and Sheila Clifton came home from voting when her youngest daughter vaulted from the house promising to be home in time for supper. Maddie was seen hitting golf balls down the street then she headed home to round up some more balls.
That was the last time she was seen.
Hundreds of volunteers rooted through Jacksonville, passing out thousands of flyers with the hopes of finding a girl named Maddie Clifton.
Maddie resonated with people. She could have been anyone’s child. A little girl with a freckle-dotted face. A little girl who played piano and pick-up basketball like nobody’s business. She had a zest for life and a heart for the underdog.
When watching a TV show, she’d root for scary people or scary things because she didn’t like the idea of people or things feeling lonely or being isolated, her sister said.
Maybe that’s why Maddie went across the street where an awkward and somewhat isolated boy lived.
The first seven days of Maddie’s disappearance was like a three-ring circus. The activity in the community was nonstop: Cops, reporters and hundreds of people descended on the lives of the Cliftons, all in the name of finding Maddie. Even National Guard troops were called to walk through the sewer system looking for signs of the missing girl.
On Nov. 10, Maddie’s parents had just finished taping an interview with a national news morning program when neighbor Missy Phillips ran across the street to find a police officer. Phillips found Maddie’s body entombed inside the frame of her 14-year-old son’s waterbed. Maddie’s body was partially clothed; she had been beaten with a baseball bat and stabbed multiple times.
As police went to a middle school and arrested Joshua Phillips that day, parents at Maddie’s San Jose Catholic School raced there to take their children home early. Children were seen sobbing as they clung to their parents and headed for home.
Joshua Phillips told police Maddie came over to play baseball and that he accidentally hit her in the head with a ball. He said when she wouldn’t stop crying, he dragged her in the house. He said he was afraid of what his father, an alcoholic with a violent temper, would do if he found out he had been playing with someone, something he said he wasn’t allowed to do when his parents weren’t home.
Joshua Phillips slept on that waterbed for the next seven nights as Maddie’s body began to waste away. He later told the Times-Union that he told himself nothing happened to her so much that he began to believe it. So he joined hundreds of others and searched for Maddie during those seven days two decades ago.
Churches across Jacksonville opened their doors for a community — who largely never met Maddie — to come together and grieve in 1998. At one service, Jessie Clifton addressed the congregation and asked God to forgive her for pleading with him to bring her sister back.
The following day, some 1,400 people poured into the same Catholic church on San Jose Boulevard where Maddie made her First Communion, but this time it was for the little girl’s funeral. Maddie’s small casket was placed at the center of the altar, covered in a cream-colored cloth. Nearby was a photo of the little girl with the Kool-Aid smile. A heart-shaped flower arrangement from Maddie’s third-grade class also stood nearby. Outside, thousands lined the streets.
On Nov. 19, 1998, a grand jury returned a first-degree murder charge against Joshua Phillips.
“The citizens of Jacksonville should be assured every appropriate resource in my office will be devoted to making sure Maddie Clifton’s murderer is brought to justice,” State Attorney Harry Shorstein said at a news conference. “The murder of this little girl has shaken me just as it has the rest of our community.”
Joshua Phillips was going to be tried as an adult and the Maddie Clifton story again became national news.
A conviction of first-degree murder at the time was an automatic life sentence for a boy, too young to be executed by the state.
A tall, curly-haired boy entered the courtroom the following year. Prior to the murder charge, he had never been in trouble. He was a boy who liked computers and his dog, a beagle.
“This was a devastating murder that will forever be in the memories of anyone in Jacksonville at the time,” said retired veteran prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda. “Historically it was one of the most horrific murders, there is no doubt about that. … Everyone was talking about it. When you’ve got a missing girl, and this missing girl turns out to be dead, I don’t think there was anyone who didn’t know about this or who wasn’t praying for her or attempting to find her.”
Because of all that and all the pre-trial publicity, the trial was moved out of Jacksonville.
During the trial, the boy’s attorney called no witnesses. Joshua Phillips was found guilty of first-degree murder and was sent away to spend the rest of his life behind bars. He would later get the same punishment at a new sentencing last year when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to automatically sentence youthful offenders to life.
Maddie’s story didn’t end in 1999 when Joshua Phillips was shipped off to prison. The lives of those associated with him and with Maddie continued to veer off course.
The day Maddie was found under Joshua Phillips’s waterbed was the day Jessie Clifton began to lose her identity. She was a nerdy kid growing up and didn’t hang around with the popular kids.
“I was never the cool kid in school and was made fun of,” she said. “I was the geek.”
But suddenly with the death of her sister, everyone, it seemed wanted to know her. It bothered her, she said, because in her mind, these school kids never cared for her before.
Something else weighed on her too. She felt as if she was not Jessie Clifton, rather she was now Maddie Clifton’s sister. “That’s who I became. I wasn’t Jessie,” she said.
A similar thing happened to Missy Phillips, Joshua Phillips’s mother. Phillips said she tried to withdraw from society as best she could. She split her time between Jacksonville and North Central Florida hoping maybe she could reinvent herself.
For some reason, she thought if she rode her bicycle places, people wouldn’t put the face with the bike rider and therefore she’d go unnoticed.
Eventually, she did get noticed. In a church where she’d hoped to seek solace.
“Are you Joshua Phillips’s mother?” asked a stranger who approached her.
Phillips said she thought about lying but then remembered she was in a church.
“Yes,” she told the woman. Bracing for the worse, the unexpected happened when the woman reached out and embraced Phillips.
Things like that, Phillips said last month, happened more than once. That makes her feel better.
Also making her feel better is Jessie Clifton’s warmth back then and more recently.
On Wednesday, Jessie Clifton recalled how Phillips stayed inside after her son was arrested. “She hated to come outside,” she said.
So Jessie Clifton helped out. She’d walk the dog and when she’d see Phillips pull in the driveway from the grocery store, she said she’d race out to help her carry the grocery sacks inside.
Phillips sent the family a Christmas card each year.
“She was such a sweet and kind person, she didn’t deserve what happened,” Jessie Clifton said. ”… I feel like she feels everyone was against her. She found Maddie and I cannot even imagine that and then to realize what her son had done. That is a lot for one person to handle.”
The two of them shared a bond that day in November 1998 when Clifton lost her sister and Phillips lost a son: “A loss is a loss,” Jessie Clifton said.
Lives continued to unravel.
Missy Phillips’ husband, Steve Phillips, died in a car crash.
Steve and Sheila Clifton divorced after 25 years of marriage. The couple had known each other in high school and had been together for 30 years.
But Maddie’s death put an end to the normalcy that the family enjoyed — a solid family that enjoyed one another, enjoyed fishing trips and vacations.
“Everything stopped when my parents divorced,” Jessie Clifton said.
They handled the grief differently, with Steve Clifton largely shutting down and Sheila Clifton wanting to talk about it, Jessie Clifton said. But she didn’t think it was a good time to talk with her mother for this story.
Sheila Clifton moved into her mother’s house in the same neighborhood allowing her to still be close to her daughter, but away from the Phillips’ home where Maddie died. She then moved to Macclenny where she is today.
Steve Clifton moved out of the house this summer. Jessie still lives there and is in the process of buying it from him.
To her, it’s a home where many fantastic memories were made before 1998.
“It’s always been my home,” the 31-year-old said.
Joshua Phillips Videos
Frequently Asked Questions
Joshua Phillips FAQ
Joshua Phillips 2021
Joshua Phillips is currently incarcerated at the Cross City Correctional Institute
Joshua Phillips Release Date
Joshua Phillips is serving a life sentence
Joshua Phillips Photos
Joshua Phillips More News
She was just a child when the world she knew came to a grinding halt. The doting big sister raced through the neighborhood on her bike calling out Maddie’s name when the 8-year-old didn’t come home for supper at nightfall on Nov. 3, 1998.
Seven days later, a police officer who had camped out at her house while the search for Maddie Clifton was on, rose from the floor in Jessie Clifton’s bedroom where they were playing Monopoly and didn’t come back again. Maddie’s body was found.
Jessie, 11 at the time, raced out of the house and fell to her knees landing on the concrete and cried out.
Nineteen years later, she cried out again in a Duval County courtroom when she looked at Maddie’s killer, Joshua Phillips, someone who had been young too when the world he knew dissolved on the same day as well.
The day the 14-year-old killed Maddie, the Clifton family dynamic died. A marriage failed. The laughter silenced.
“I can tell you as a child — much like you were — when you took my best friend, I lost my childhood too. I lost Mom. I lost my dad. And I lost myself,” 30-year-old Jessie Clifton tearfully testified Thursday on the last day of Phillips’ re-sentencing hearing.
“Having to wake up every day in the circus around my house that was supposed to be Mom, Dad, Maddie going on vacations, going fishing, going skiing was spent for seven days waking up in fear and not knowing the unknown,” she said. “What that did to me as an 11-year-old is very hard to explain.
“I was alone and I tried so hard to be so strong because I knew if I fell apart, my parents would fall apart. So I tried so hard to keep a smile on their faces. After the funeral, I don’t really know if I can tell what happened until after I graduated from high school because I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything. I went through counseling — multiple counseling sessions.
“I sat in the dark not knowing what happened. I knew she was gone.”
It wasn’t until Jessie Clifton was 16 that she learned more about her sister’s death at the hands of their neighbor. With that knowledge came another round of counseling sessions.
Over the course of 19 years, there has been largely one narrative when telling little Maddie’s demise. The story, easily one of Northeast Florida’s most horrific and tragic murder cases, goes this way: A 14-year-old boy fearful of his father panics when his 8-year-old neighbor friend won’t stop crying after being accidentally struck by a baseball, so he takes her inside his house and kills her and shoves the body under his waterbed. A week later the boy’s mother finds Maddie entombed beneath her son’s bed.
That narrative was bad enough to send the young teen away to an adult prison for life. But that’s not the story that played out in court this week for Phillips’ resentencing hearing.
Instead, a packed courtroom full of attorneys, family members and friends of Maddie and Phillips heard about a boy who was in a sexually aroused state when he killed the little girl. They learned Maddie was clad only in a red T-shirt and white socks. They learned that Phillips’ watched violent pornography and possibly of underaged girls. And they learned that Phillips had books on devil worships and witchcraft. They learned that Phillips was obsessed with Jessie.
“Jessie Clifton: She’s afraid that if he gets out, he will come after her,” said Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda.
At the start of the re-sentencing hearing, de la Rionda portrayed Phillips as diabolical. He’s spent the better part of the week trying to hammer home the idea now that Phillips has a chance of getting out of prison.
Phillips’ case is one of some 800 in Florida coming back to the courts now that U.S. Supreme Court decisions have said it is unlawful to automatically sentence killers who were juveniles at the time of the murder to a life behind bars. Life is an option, but it must be left for the very worst cases.
Jessie Clifton, father Steven Clifton and mother Sheila DeLongis implored Judge Waddell Wallace to keep Phillips, now 33, in jail for the remainder of his life.
“When I needed someone to talk to, there was nobody because nobody understood,” Jessie Clifton testified. “Nobody understood me and there were theses days where I go to the cemetery and I’d sit down in the grass because I don’t have anyone to talk to and I just talk to her in the ground.
“There is no reason I believe — I just can’t bring myself to think that you should ever ever be able to walk outside of prison because she can’t,” she said. “It’s just not fair and you should have to pay the consequences for that.”
A date for the resentencing will be set sometime after Sept. 22 when de la Rionda and defense attorney Tom Fallis meet with the judge again.
“Should he ever be released from prison, I pray I will no longer be on this Earth,” DeLongis testified. “Because I know deep down inside he was after Jessie and I can’t bare to lose another daughter.”
Kristel Maestas was sixteen when she took part in a kidnapping and murder in Florida. According to court documents Kristel, fifteen year old Renee Lincks and seventeen year old Ronald Bell Jr would kidnap a man who allegedly made a pass at one of the girls. The trio would bring the man to a remote location where he was beaten with a bat, tied to a tree and set on fire. The trio came back the next day to find the man still alive so they slit his throat. This teen killer would be convicted of all charges and sentenced to life in prison
Long years of torment torment for the family of Cordell Richards ended Monday when Ronald Bell and Kristel Maestas were each resentenced to life in prison for his 1999 kidnap and murder.
In issuing his ruling, Circuit Court Judge William Stone notified both defendants that he had considered all the relevant factors in each of their cases, including their youth at the time and “all evidence relating to the offense.”
A former airman, the 31-year-old Richards had been missing for just over a month when, on March 4, 1999, a 12-year-old boy playing on an undeveloped lot in the Parish Pointe subdivision discovered his badly decomposed body.
Richards’ remains were found chained to a tree and burned. Assistant State Attorney Bobby Elmore would later tell a jury that just enough of the man’s fingerprints remained to allow for identification. Investigators learned that he had been horribly tortured for a full day before his death.
The resentencing of the pair, who killed Richards when Bell was 17 and Maestas 16, was ordered following a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court originally published on June 23, 2012. Justices ruled at that time that mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles were unconstitutional.
“The only thing I can say is my family and I are still just in shock we had to go through this in court, Reanna Richards, Richards daughter, said after Monday’s hearing. “I thank God the judge found the wisdom to rule the way he did.”
Both Bell and Maestas, who are now in their 30s and have spent more than half of their lives in prison, appeared in court for their sentencing.
Bell showed no emotion as Stone re-sentenced not only to life in prison for one count of first degree murder, but also to a consecutive live sentence for kidnapping with a weapon.
Maestas, however, openly wept during the proceedings. She will serve life in prison for the killing of Richards and 30 years consecutive to that for her role in the kidnapping, Stone said.
Kristel Maestas Videos
Frequently Asked Questions
Kristel Maestas FAQ
Kristel Maestas Now
Kristel Maestas is currently incarcerated at the Lowell Correctional Institute
Kristel Maestas Release Date
Kristel Maestas is serving life without parole
Ronald Bell 2021
Ronald Bell is currently incarcerated at the Taylor Correctional Institute
Ronald Lee Bell, Jr., was found guilty by a jury of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon and armed kidnaping with a weapon. Bell was seventeen years and ten months of age at the time that these crimes were committed. He lived with his parents and was a high school senior. The victim of both crimes was Cordell Richards and the crimes occurred on February 2 and 3, 1999. The testimony at trial detailed the following sequence of events.
On March 4, 1999, Richards’ decomposing body was found in a wooded area at the end of a cul-de-sac in an undeveloped portion of a housing subdivision in Okaloosa County. Richards’ remains, which were partially skeletonized and burned, were tied to a tree with a chain and a rope.
Dr. Michael Berkland, the medical examiner, inspected the remains at the scene and then performed the autopsy. Dr. Berkland found that the body was in an advanced state of decomposition and that there were multiple fractures to the head, which were the result of blunt force trauma. He also found injury to the victim’s shoulder blade, sternum, ribs, arm and wrist. Based upon the burn patterns, Dr. Berkland concluded that the burning occurred post-mortem. Dr. Berkland also concluded that the manner of death was homicidal violence with combined features of blunt force trauma to the head, body, and upper extremities, and probable chop injury to the left neck.
Kimberly Maestas, Renee Lincks, and Bell were all charged with the murder of Richards.1 Maestas and Lincks testified against Bell, and the testimony regarding the events leading up to the homicide of Richards came primarily from them.2 At the time of the homicide, Bell, who was seventeen, and Maestas, who was sixteen, had been dating for a few months. Maestas had been “kicked out” of her parents’ home. Maestas and Bell met Richards through a newspaper listing advertising a place to live, and Maestas moved into the extra bedroom in Richards’ apartment. Richards was thirty-one years of age.
Maestas testified that after she moved into Richards’ apartment, Richards made inappropriate sexual advances. Richards would come into Maestas’s room wearing only bikini underwear. One time Richards propositioned her for sex. Maestas testified that when she said “no,” Richards grabbed her shoulders and pushed her against the wall. She started to cry and asked him not to do that. Richards pushed her against the wall a second time and she hit her head. Maestas testified that Bell found out about Richards’ attack when he saw the bruises on Maestas’s back.
Lincks, who was fifteen, was a friend of Maestas, and came to the apartment to spend the night with her. That night, Richards asked Maestas and Lincks if they wanted to sleep with him in his bed. This made Maestas and Lincks uncomfortable, and so Lincks called a friend, who took them to Bell’s house. Bell later took Maestas and Lincks back to Richards’ apartment and left a baseball bat with them in case something happened. Later, Richards called Maestas and Lincks from his bedroom telephone and made statements that upset them, so they paged Bell and he came to the apartment to help them.
When Bell entered the apartment, he confronted Richards about his behavior towards Maestas and Lincks. Bell and Richards started pushing one another. Bell placed Richards in a choke hold and Richards lost consciousness. Bell told Lincks to get the bat and she gave it to Maestas. Maestas hit Richards in the legs with the bat. Bell told Lincks to get a rope from his car 3 and a blanket from Richards’ bed. Richards was tied with the rope, rolled in the blanket and placed in Bell’s car. Bell then drove to a wooded area at the end of a cul-de-sac.
Kristel Maestas held the flashlight while Bell and Lincks carried Richards into the woods. At some point they stopped, and Bell told Maestas to shine the flashlight in Richards’ face while Lincks asked Richards for his PIN numbers. Bell then told Maestas to hit Richards with the baseball bat, which she did, and Richards asked Bell not to kill him. Lincks also hit Richards with the baseball bat. According to Maestas and Lincks, Bell told them that they were not hitting Richards hard enough and so Bell hit Richards very hard and said, “Look, I’m Babe Ruth.” They then carried Richards deeper into the woods and tied and chained him to a tree. Maestas testified that Bell poured lighter fluid on Richards and set Richards on fire while he was still alive and groaning.
Bell returned to the scene a few more times. He first returned later that day with Kristel Maestas and Lincks to make sure that Richards was dead. Bell and Lincks went into the woods while Maestas waited at the car. Bell and Lincks could hear Richards yelling for help. When Bell and Lincks returned to the car, Lincks told Maestas that Bell had tried to break Richards’ neck. They left the scene and drove to a Target store where they bought a meat cleaver and duct tape and then returned to Richards’ location. Bell and Lincks went back into the woods, where Bell cut Richards’ throat. The two then returned to Maestas five or ten minutes later. Bell went back to the body again after he and Lincks decided that Bell had not cut Richards’ throat enough.
That night, a friend of Bell’s came over and helped to forge checks on Richards’ account. A few days later, they pawned Richards’ television and violin. About a week after that, Bell, Maestas and Maestas’s fourteen-year-old sister went to Richards’ location again. Richards was dead at this time. Bell poured gasoline on the body and started a fire.
On February 13, 1999, the police went to Richards’ apartment to check on Richards’ whereabouts after one of Richards’ friends told the police that he had been unable to contact Richards. The officers tried to get the attention of anyone who might be in the apartment by pounding on the doors and windows. When no one responded, one of the officers entered the apartment through a window. One of the bedroom doors was secured with a deadbolt lock and a towel was stuffed underneath the door. The officers knocked on the bedroom door and Bell opened it. Kristel Maestas was in a sleeping bag on the floor. Bell and Maestas appeared to be just waking up. They denied knowing anything about Richards’ whereabouts.
After the State presented its case, Bell waived his right to present evidence and his right to testify. The jury thereafter found Bell guilty of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon and armed kidnaping with a weapon
Three teenagers charged with murdering a man by burning him alive and then slashing his throat while he was tied to a tree will be prosecuted as adults, a grand jury has decided.
The panel indicted the young man and two young women on charges of first-degree murder and kidnapping Thursday in the death of Persian Gulf War veteran Cordell Richards, 31, of Fort Walton Beach.
Okaloosa County sheriff’s investigators said the apparent motive was revenge for alleged sexual advances the victim made toward one of the girls.
Assistant State Attorney Bobby Elmore said prosecutors haven’t decided whether to seek the death penalty against Ronald Bell Jr., 18, of Mary Esther, and his girlfriend, Kristel Maestas, 17, of Fort Walton Beach. The only other penalty for first-degree murder is life in prison without parole.
The third defendant, Renee Lincks, 16, of Fort Walton Beach, was 15 when Richards was killed in late January or early February. The Florida Supreme court has ruled that a person cannot be executed for a crime committed when 15 or younger.
The three teens were removed from a juvenile detention facility in Pensacola and taken to the Okaloosa County Jail in Crestview after being indicted.
A fourth teen, April Maestas, the 14-year-old sister of Kristel Maestas, remained at the juvenile facility under a charge of accessory after the fact to murder.
She is accused of helping her sister and Bell try to destroy evidence by burning the body a second time about two weeks after the killing in an empty lot. The body wasn’t found until about a month after the murder.
No decision has been made on whether April Maestas will be tried as an adult. If so, she could get a sentence of up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
Deputies said Kristel Maestas, who was renting a room in Richards’ apartment, and Lincks lured the victim into a compromising situation so Bell could knock him out by striking him in the head with a flashlight.
Richards was taken to an isolated area where he was beaten with bats and sticks and set on fire. His throat was slashed once the fire was out to make sure he died, investigators said.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
