Insets, from left: Frederick Rudolph and James Daniels (Florida Department of Corrections). Background: Scene of the crime in Opa-Locka, Florida where Rudolph and Daniels took the lives of two men (WTVJ).

In Florida, two men have been sentenced to life imprisonment for a nightmarish 2020 abduction incident. They kidnapped three individuals, subjected them to “torture” in the rear of a rented U-Haul van, and then executed two of them, while remarkably, one victim survived, stated prosecutors.

James Edward Daniels, 59, and Frederick Eugene Rudolph, 69, both residents of Miami, received life sentences last Tuesday for the December 2020 murders of Osmar Oliva, 50, and Johan Gonzalez Quesada, 26. They were found guilty the previous year of conspiracy to kidnap resulting in death, several counts of kidnapping ending in death, and kidnapping, as reported by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. Another individual involved, Herbert Barr, admitted guilt to kidnapping and received a prison sentence of 12 and a half years plus five years of supervised release.

“On Dec. 5, 2020, Daniels, Rudolph, Barr and other co-conspirators kidnapped three victims from a truck yard in Opa-locka, Fla.,” the attorney’s office said in a press release last week. “They bound and tortured the victims, duct-taped their eyes and threw them in the back of a rented van after stealing the victims’ drugs. They drove around the city for hours before taking the victims to an abandoned house in Opa-locka and attempting to execute them by shooting the three victims. Two of the victims died, while one miraculously survived.”

The victim who lived was airlifted to the hospital and made a full recovery, according to prosecutors. In addition to attacking and torturing them, Miami-Dade police reported that the trio had also been robbed.

“Daniels stole jewelry from one of the murdered victims,” prosecutors explained. “And all defendants benefitted by receiving drugs, money, or both, in exchange for their participation in the conspiracy.”

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Records show Daniels and Rudolph were also indicted on unrelated drug distribution charges in July 2022. In that case, a judge sentenced Rudolph to 11 years in prison and Daniels to 35 months in prison, or just under three years. The men were indicted for the kidnapping case in November 2023. Neither is a stranger to the criminal justice system, with Daniels’ Florida Department of Corrections incarceration history dating back 40 years. Rudolph was on probation for a drug-related charge at the time of the murders, records show.

The investigation into the 2020 kidnapping and shootings was conducted by the South Florida High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Task Force.

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