Background: News footage showing the scene in Tampa, Fla., where two individuals were fatally shot on Oct. 3 (WFLA). Inset: Louis Jules (Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office).
A man from Florida confessed to authorities that he was the individual captured on a shooting victim’s cellphone, leading to his arrest on two counts of murder.
Louis Jules, age 59, was taken into custody on Friday after police identified him as the suspect involved in a deadly shooting of two individuals. As outlined in a criminal report affidavit viewed by Law&Crime, officers from the Tampa Police Department responded to a report of a shooting of two people on Friday morning. Upon arriving, they discovered a male victim on the ground and a female victim partially out of a white pickup truck. Both victims were declared dead at the location.
But the dead woman was right next to her cellphone, and according to the police, it recorded the last moments of her life.
According to the affidavit, the phone was found near the unidentified woman’s body and “appeared to be recording an active video.”
Authorities stated that video footage depicted a man, later identified as Jules, standing near the truck’s rear passenger side, holding a set of keys and a cup. The report mentioned that Jules reached inside the vehicle and began searching through it. The unidentified male victim supposedly said, “Hey, you can’t go in my car.” The female added, “You can’t search [his] vehicle.”
Following the verbal warning from the alleged victims, Jules was observed throwing the liquid from the cup at the man while going for a semi-automatic handgun located on his right side.
“The video then shows the defendant pointing the firearm toward the area where the male victim was found and racks the slide back,” police reported. The woman is heard screaming as gunfire erupts, at which point authorities described the video as becoming “very shaky” as the female victim attempted to escape to safety.
Police said that “several more gunshots” were heard while she moved. After the alleged shooting ended, Jules was seen closing the vehicle’s door and leaving the scene.
Two of Jules’ neighbors and his landlord identified Jules as the man in the video that allegedly depicted the double homicide. Police found Jules at someone else’s home with a red pickup truck registered to him. As officers approached him, police said he “discarded a black semi-automatic pistol” into the bed of the truck.
Police read Jules his rights and interviewed him, during which he allegedly admitted to knowing both of the victims and claimed that they “owed him money” for a vehicle he sold to them. They had an argument the previous night, Jules allegedly told police, and then they showed up at his home the next morning. Jules believed that they showed up that morning to give him the money they owed him, police said. He thought they were driving him to an ATM to get cash, so he started to get in the truck.
When they told him to get out of the truck, he realized they were not taking him anywhere, and he stated that he “was very angry,” police said. When authorities showed Jules the video, he identified himself.
Jules was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of tampering with evidence. He is being held without bond at the Hillsborough County Jail. His next court date is scheduled for Oct. 9.
