Michael Keetley is accused of shooting a group of men on Thanksgiving morning 2010. A jury in his first trial was unable to decide if he is guilty.
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New jury gives 2010 Ruskin ice cream man murder case a second look
Michael Keetley is accused of shooting a group of men on Thanksgiving morning 2010. A jury in his first trial was unable to decide if he is guilty.
TAMPA — If you believe the state of Florida, Michael Keetley was so intent on revenge after he was robbed and shot in his ice cream truck that he posed as a cop and toted a gun to a Ruskin neighborhood and shot six innocent men, killing two on Thanksgiving morning 2010.
If you believe Keetley’s defense, he is a victim of circumstance, a man whose physical disabilities prevented him from committing such violence and a man who ended up wrongfully accused based on a hodgepodge of imprecise evidence and fuzzy recollections.
It’s a tale that’s been told often in Tampa’s courthouse. On Monday, it was told once again.
Keetley’s second murder trial opened Monday morning, three years after his first jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of finding him not guilty, and almost 13 years since he was first accused in the bizarre shooting that claimed the lives of brothers Juan and Sergio Guitron.
In opening statements, a prosecutor and a defense attorney, both new since the last trial, reiterated their respective takes on the long-running, complex case.
“Obsessing about revenge,” said Assistant State Attorney Jennifer Johnson. “That’s what this case is about.”
“Michael Keetley is not guilty because he did not do it,” said defense attorney John Grant. “He did not do it, because he could not do it.”
The attorneys each touched on the events that preceded the killings. In January 2010, Keetley was working south Hillsborough County in his ice cream truck when a woman flagged him down and two men accosted him with guns after he stopped. They shot him in his leg, chest, arm and hand. They took $12.
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