The two boys arrested on charges of murdering three teenagers in central Florida robbed a man at gunpoint hours before their victims were found shot to death, police said.
Robert Robinson, 17, and 12-year-old Christopher Atkins had arranged to meet a man on the evening of March 30 and sell him a gun for $240. They drove to his home shortly after 7 p.m. stepped into their house. vehicle.
The gun was placed on the buyer’s lap, who then took $240 from his pocket. The gun was retrieved by one of the boys: Robinson pistol-whipped the man and then the pair pointed their guns at the man, according to a police report.
The prospective buyer scrambled out of the car and ran to his house: one shot was fired at him and the white sedan sped away.
Surveillance camera footage captured the gunshot noise at 7:10 p.m.
Robert Robinson, 17, was arrested Friday and charged with killing three teenagers as well as armed robbery hours before the murders
Robinson’s accomplice was a 12-year-old, Christopher Atkins, known as “35.” Robinson was known as ‘Reaper’
Layla Silvernail, 16, was shot in the head and left in a dumpster but was still alive. She later died in hospital, before police found two more teenage victims: a 17-year-old boy and another 16-year-old girl.
The car belonged to a member of the Silvernail family, according to the police report.
At 10:52 p.m. that same night, Layla Silvernail, 16, was found dead from a gunshot wound.
Her body had been dumped in a dumpster.
Redacted police are not disclosing whether Layla was in the car at the time of the armed robbery, less than four hours before she was found dying. It does suggest that a member of the family was with the two thieves.
A woman was with the group shortly before the armed robbery.
She told police that “Silvernail told her that after she was dropped off, they went to pick up ‘Reaper’ and ’35.’
The affidavit says Robinson went by the name “Reaper” and Atkins was “35.”
Shortly after Layla Silvernail, two other teenage victims were found: an unnamed 17-year-old boy was found less than a mile away on the side of a road, and 16-year-old Camille Quarles was found in Silvernail’s car on April 1. which was partially submerged in a pond.
An arrest affidavit was prepared for Robinson on April 2, detailing the armed robbery.
Robinson and Atkins were handpicked by the victim – the future gun buyer – in a photographic setup.
An arrest warrant was issued for Robinson on April 5 on charges of ‘theft with a firearm or deadly weapon’ – Robinson was arrested two days later on April 7.
Christopher Atkins, 12, and Robert Robinson, 17, remain in custody on charges related to the murder of three Florida teenagers
A third perpetrator, Tahj Brewton, is wanted by police in connection with the shooting
A third suspect in the murder of the three teens – Tahj Brewton, 17 – remains a fugitive.
A $10,000 reward has been offered for information leading to his arrest.
The sheriff in the small Florida town of Ocklawaha vowed to track down the third suspect in the murders.
“I’ll get him,” said Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods.
Woods explained that the victims and the alleged killers were all “connected in some way to a gang” involved in a spate of robberies and burglaries.
“There is no honor among thieves, and at some point these individuals turned on our three victims and killed them,” Woods said.
He said the three suspects “fleeed the scene but left behind a lot of evidence.”
Woods fought back tears when he described having to “stare the mothers of the young suspects in the eyes.”
He said, “I put myself in the shoes of those mothers because I heard one of them say, ‘I wish I had known what these did and who they were, because my child would never have interacted with them.’
Detectives were able to determine that prior to their murders, the three teenage victims were together in a Silvernail-owned vehicle before being dumped at different locations over a three-day period.
According to an affidavit filed against 12-year-old Atkins, Silvernail’s body was discovered in a dumpster after a vehicle crashed into it shortly after residents heard several gunshots.
Sixteen-year-old Silvernail was still alive when she was discovered near Forest Lakes Park. She later succumbed to her injuries and died in hospital.
Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods announced at a news conference Friday morning that arrests had been made
Silvernail was found, still alive, in this dumpster in Marion, County Florida
Camille Quarles, 16, was found on Saturday in Silvernail’s car, which was partially submerged in a pond
Layla Silvernail’s friends and family have paid a heartbreaking tribute to the teen, who they say was “taken from us too soon and will be greatly missed”
This is the location where a schoolgirl found one of the 17-year-old victims on her way to school
The gruesome discovery was followed hours later when an unnamed 17-year-old victim was found on the side of a road less than a mile away.
He was sprawled on the side of a dirt road where a college student says she stumbled across the horror on the early morning of March 31 on her way to the school bus.
“I was walking with my brother and I found the man… he wasn’t breathing,” the student, who would only give her name as Khatia, told DailyMail.com.
He was lying on his side wearing a black hoodie, black shirt, black pants and black shoes.
“He had the hoodie over his head and he had a black mask over his face.
‘I couldn’t see his face. You could only see his eyes.’
A third victim, 16-year-old Camille Quarles, was found Saturday in Silvernail’s car, which was partially submerged in a pond.
The arrested suspects confessed to shooting Quales in the vehicle, Woods said.
They obtained guns from car thefts, he said, but declined to comment on the number of guns used in the killings.
When asked about the motive, Woods said, “We have nothing to say that rivalry or anything like that was the cause.
“But each one of them was connected to a gang in some way.
“There is no honor among thieves, and at some point these individuals turned on our three victims and killed them.”