Twenty-eight years old Juan Geitron and twenty-two years old Sergio Geitron were the brothers who were shot down tragically on the Thanksgiving of 2010. The two brothers were playing cards with their friends when a man rushed into the house with a gun, killing them. While the four others survived, the Geitron brothers were not spared.
Ruskin ice cream man murder trial sees doubts cloud tales of revenge @TB_Times https://t.co/HGP5iqfRbB
— Dan Sullivan (@TimesDan) March 10, 2023
Michael Keetley was a 53-year-old ice cream who was shot several times by two shooters in January 2010. Following this, he was put on disability when multiple surgeries were required after the incident. According to an ex-girlfriend of Keetley, he was obsessed with vigilante justice. For this reason, prosecutors claimed in a trial held in 2020 that Michael Keetley was the perpetrator behind the shooting carried out on the fateful Thanksgiving morning. This was further corroborated when one of the surviving victims firmly identified Michael Keetley as the shooter.
While the murders and the attempted murders are being regarded as a form of vigilante justice for Keetley, who wanted revenge on the shooters who were the cause of his disability, it was sadly the wrong people. None of the men in the group in the house in 2010 had ever met Michael Keetley.
An ice cream man accused of shooting dead suspected robbers in 2010 goes to trial again, but the defense counsel says it was not him. https://t.co/hFWiEg4yuS
— HNGN (@HNGNcom) March 9, 2023
With a suspect on hold, the Guitron brothers have still not received justice, as their mother, Paz Qaezada, says in her interview, “I want justice, and please pray for me.” The first trial, which took place in 2020, was declared a mistrial when the jury could not come to a consistent result. With the defendants claiming that the last trial was solely based on circumstantial evidence and witness testimonies, the retrial, which will be held this year, is set to hear fresh evidence.
While the trial could take over three weeks to come to a final hearing, and Michael Keetley faces two charges of first-degree murder and four charges of attempted murder, officials have said that this is Hillsborough County’s longest-extending murder trial.
