Accomplices of a teenager accused of killing two British tourists in Florida will testify against him in court this week after breaking a code of silence around the crime to offer critical prosecution evidence.
Former friends of Shawn Tyson will claim at his murder trial that they helped him to dispose of the gun he used to kill James Cooper, 25, and James Kouzaris, 24, after they strayed unwittingly onto a high-crime housing estate during a beach holiday in Sarasota in April last year.
In a further blow to the defence, Judge Rick De Furia of the 12th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida, has ruled that accounts of an incident in which Tyson shot at a car full of people just nine days before he fatally shot the two British friends can be heard by jurors at the trial, for which jury selection begins tomorrow.
“What’s important is that the same weapon was used in both incidents,” prosecutor Karen Fraivillig told The Times.
“We never found the murder weapon, but the weapon used by Tyson the week before — a .22-calibre revolver — is consistent with the gunshot wounds on the two victims, and with the shell casings that were eventually recovered after the homicides,” she said.
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Tyson, who turns 17 tomorrow, is charged on two counts of first-degree murder and faces life imprisonment if convicted. Under Florida law, the death penalty cannot be applied to crimes committed under the age of 17.
Friends of Mr Cooper and Mr Kouzaris will travel from Britain to attend the trial, which is expected to last eight days. Family members will not attend.
In the ten months since the two men’s deaths, friends and relatives have founded a charity in their memory, Always a Chance, and raised more than £100,000 for projects that tackle the causes of violent crime in Britain and provide support to victims.
Mr Cooper, of Warwick, and Mr Kouzaris, of Northampton, became best friends while studying at Sheffield University and had travelled the world together. They were taking a holiday on the upmarket barrier island of Longboat Key but ended up — unintentionally, investigators believe — in the troubled Newtown district of Sarasota after drinking in downtown bars until the early hours of April 16.
As they walked past a run-down housing complex known as The Courts, they encountered Tyson, who due to a court mix-up had been released from jail just 12 hours previously despite a judge having deemed him to be a danger to the community based on prior firearms allegations.
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Wanda Farrior, 48, who lived opposite Tyson, will testify at the trial that she heard shots and saw the teenager running from the scene and climbing into his mother’s flat through a window.
Mrs Farrior initially refused to give evidence, fearing that her life could be in danger if she did so. Police persuaded housing authorities to help find her a new home away from Newtown, in exchange for her testimony.
“There was a fear among these people of retaliation and a fear of being known for betrayal — the ‘snitch’ epithet,” said Ms Fraivillig.
“My detective in this case was just relentless, he didn’t give up, he sought these people out over and over again and persuaded them to cooperate,” she said.
Joshua Bane, 25, a former friend of Tyson and convicted felon, is among those who will testify that the teenager enlisted help in disposing of the murder weapon. Tyson’s lawyer accused him during a pre-trial hearing last week of doing a deal with police to save his own skin.
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“Not necessarily,” Bane replied in court. “It’s just right.”