Emily Brown
The victim of a double murder managed to capture footage of her own suspected killer in a brave final act that helped police make an arrest in the case.
Police in Florida arrested Louis Charles Jules after officers with the Tampa Police Department responded to 911 calls for a shooting with two possible victims on Friday (October 3).
Officers found two people who had been shot to death in a white Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck at El Portal Drive and West Yukon Street, with a man found lying on the ground outside the vehicle, while a woman was discovered partially hanging out of the passenger side of the car.
When Tampa Police Homicide investigators began looking at the scene more closely, detectives found that the woman was still holding her cellphone and realized that in her final moments, she'd started recording a video which was still running.
Advert
Investigators processed the video and found footage showing a man wearing sunglasses and dressed in a polo shirt, grey pants and black shoes, approaching the pickup truck with the two victims inside.
He had been holding a cup and car keys, and proceeded to open the rear passenger door of the truck.
The two victims confronted the suspect in Spanish, Fox 13 News reports, saying: "Hey, you can't go into my car!"
The man then threw the cup of liquid at the male victim, after which he produced a concealed handgun and allegedly shot the victim.
The woman could be heard screaming in the video, followed by the sound of several more gunshots before the suspect walked out of the video.
Police were able to use the clip to identify the suspect as Louis Jules, who lives across the street from the scene of the crime.
He was arrested about eight hours after the shooting, with police finding his handgun and sunglasses hidden in the back of a pickup truck owned by someone else at the same address.
Court documents cited by Fox 13 state Jules identified himself from the video, and claimed he had sold the Chevy pickup truck to the two victims, but they had not paid him for it.
He claimed he approached the victims so he could accompany them to an ATM to get his money, which is when the alleged altercation took place.
Jules has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of tampering with physical evidence relating to a capital felony, and is currently being held in the Hillsborough County Jail without bond.