A third suspect was arrested Saturday in connection with the “gang-related” murders of three teens that rocked Florida last week.
Police vowed to find Tahj Brewton, 16, after his suspected accomplices Christopher Atkins, 12, and Robert Robinson, 17, were arrested Friday in connection with the killings outside Ocklawaha.
The U.S. Marshals worked with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office to capture Brewton after Layla Silvernail, 16, Camille Quarles, 16, and an unidentified 17-year-old boy were found shot to death and dumped for three days in several places within a radius of 5 miles.
Brewton was arrested on several charges, including grand larceny, carjacking with a firearm, attempting to evade a law enforcement officer and tampering with an electronic surveillance device, the sheriff’s department said.
The three teens arrested in connection with the murders all face additional charges and first-degree murder.
Tahj Brewton, 16, was arrested Saturday in connection with the triple death of a teenager last week in Central Florida
Layla Silvernail, 16, was shot in the head and left in a dumpster but was still alive. Silvernail (left) later died in hospital, before police found two more teenage victims – a 17-year-old boy and another 16-year-old girl named Camille Quales (right)
Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods explained at a press conference Friday that the victims and the alleged killers were all “connected in some way to a gang” involved in a spate of robberies and burglaries.
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 arrest warrant 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 shot in the head and was alive when discovered near Forest Lakes Park, but later succumbed to her injuries and died in hospital.
The discovery was followed hours later when an unnamed 17-year-old victim was found less than a mile away on the side of a road.
A third victim, 16-year-old Camille Quarles, was found Saturday in Silvernail’s car, which was partially submerged in a pond.
After revealing that Quarles was in the trunk of the car, Sheriff Woods said cell phone evidence suggested she was in the vehicle “of her own free will.”
The arrested suspects confessed to shooting Quales in the vehicle, Woods said. They obtained guns from car thefts, he explained, but declined to comment on the number of guns used in the murders.
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.”
Christopher Atkins, 12, and Robert Robinson, 17, remain in custody on charges related to the murder of three Florida teenagers
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
Silvernail was described as a talented softball player by her friends and relatives
This is the location where a schoolgirl found one of the 17-year-old victims on her way to school
Woods said the alleged murders by the three young teens were messy and they left evidence everywhere.
The arrests come after the proximity of the victims’ bodies initially raised fears that a serial killer was on the loose in the small town of Ocklawaha, but police were quick to rule that theory out.
An urgent investigation was launched following the gruesome discoveries, with law enforcement officials describing the killings as an “isolated incident.”
After Silvernail and Quarles were identified as the victims, the identity of the third victim has not been released as their family has enacted their right to the Marsy Act, which allows crime victims or their families to request that their names be concealed from public records .
It was later revealed that the unidentified victims were wearing all black clothing with a black mask covering his face when he was found dead.
The 17-year-old boy was sprawled on the side of a dirt road where a student says she stumbled across the horror on her way to a school bus early Friday morning.
“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.’