WEST PALM BEACH — More than five years after a shooting that killed two teens at a West Palm Beach-area park, authorities have arrested a 27-year-old man in connection to the crime.
Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies booked Jabari Scott into the jail on Monday, Oct. 7, to face charges in the Jan. 13, 2019, killings of 17-year-old Moltere Charles Jr. and 16-year-old Frederick Rosemond at Lake Belvedere Estates Park.
A grand jury in June formally indicted Scott on two counts of first-degree murder with a firearm in the Lake Belvedere Estates Park shootings. He is also facing five additional counts of attempted second-degree murder.
On the order of Circuit Judge Scott Suskauer, who will preside over Scott’s trial, state officials transferred Scott from the custody of the Florida Department of Corrections, where he is serving a 10-year prison sentence at Lancaster Correctional Institution in a separate attempted murder case.
During a hearing on Tuesday, Oct. 8, Circuit Judge Donald Hafele assigned Scott a public defender and ordered that he be held without bail. As a policy, the county Public Defender’s Office does not comment on open cases.
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Sheriff’s investigators said Charles and Rosemond were shot and killed as they and a group of friends hung out listening to music in the park, on Caroline Avenue off Haverhill Road. A third person was also shot but survived.
Family members of Charles and Rosemond told The Palm Beach Post the teens had come from a Sweet 16 birthday held at a banquet hall about two miles to the east.
According to a sheriff’s arrest report, the teens and a group of friends were standing near or resting in vehicles on the north side of the park when at least one person approached and indiscriminately began firing shots at them.
Investigators obtained surveillance camera video from a neighboring residence which showed one person armed with a handgun and another armed with a rifle. The sheriff’s firearms lab determined that shell casings and projectiles recovered from the homicide matched casings recovered nearby from separate shootings in December.
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Through ballistics analysis and surveillance footage, investigators identified Scott as a suspect in the December 2018 shootings. After being taken into custody on a probation violation, he admitted to being involved in the December shootings but denied having any involvement in the Lake Belvedere Estates homicides, the arrest report said.
He told investigators he was near Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard, more than two miles away, when the homicides occurred.
According to the arrest report, investigators obtained a recording of a phone call Scott made to a friend shortly after his interview with detectives. Scott described being questioned about the double homicide and instructed his friend to go to Scott’s home, retrieve clothing that Scott was wearing on the night in question and burn it, the report said.
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He also instructed his friend to delete social media posts of him, particularly those showing clothing he was wearing at the time of the homicides. Investigators determined that the information disseminated by Scott during the recorded phone calls was inconsistent with the information he provided to detectives.
A review of cellphone data placed a mobile device belonging to Scott in the area of the homicide scene that night, investigators said. They also determined that Scott used his mobile device to research how to change or alter evidence connected to an AK-47 Draco-style pistol. Forensic analysts linked some of the shell casings to that type of pistol, and investigators found evidence that Scott had one in possession in the days surrounding the shootings.
Julius Whigham II is a criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jwhigham@pbpost.com and follow him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @JuliusWhigham. Help support our work: Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Murder charges filed in teens’ shooting deaths at West Palm Beach park
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