Video

Timothy Lee Brown, 16, Fort Myers who is the fifth suspect in the murder of NFL star Sean Taylor had a court appearance this morning, May 14, 2008, in Fort Myers and is expected to be transported to Miami. Watch »

Video

Four suspects were arrested in Lee County in connection with the slaying of NFL star Sean Taylor. The Daily News had reporters on the scene at FDLE all day covering the arrests. Watch »

AP photo

Washington Redskins football player Sean Taylor is seen before the start of a game against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Jacksonville, Fla., in this Aug. 30, 2007 photo. Taylor died from injuries sustained when he was shot in the leg early Monday, said family friend Richard Sharpstein on Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007.

Photos of the suspects in the murder of NFL star Sean Taylor. Click to enlarge.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

RELATED STORIES

• Judge pushes date of NFL star Sean Taylor murder trial to next year
• Youngest suspect in Sean Taylor murder case ‘didn’t do anything’
• Police negating alibis of Sean Taylor murder suspects
• Plea deal struck for Taylor murder suspect; A fifth arrested
• Prosecutors won’t seek death penalty in NFL star’s shooting death
• Judge denies bail for suspect in Sean Taylor killing
• Sean Taylor murder suspects may have left burglary tools at Lehigh house

More Bonita

• Bonita man seriously injured in I-75 crash
• Today's traffic enforcement locations in Collier, Lee
• Southbound lanes on I-75 closed by accident near marker 131

Share and Enjoy [?]

Professional football player Sean Taylor had been dead for three days — time enough for Miami-Dade County investigators to center their inquiries around a group of young men from Lee County.

In an interview room with a homicide detective on the last day of November, one of those men, Venjah Hunte, kept saying he didn’t know why he was being questioned.

Hunte, a Fort Myers resident who had just turned 20, said he didn’t know the other young men who, like him, would soon be arrested. They would all be charged with the armed burglary of the Palmetto Bay home of the Washington Redskins safety, Taylor. They would all be charged with first-degree murder in the shooting that left the rising star bleeding on the floor near the entrance to the bedroom where, minutes before, he had been sleeping with his girlfriend and his young daughter.

Afterwards, there would be an anonymous tip that Fort Myers area men were involved — and many leads to follow, many conversations in which the same names were linked with the rented SUV that crossed Alligator Alley that night, and linked with the bag of burglary tools apparently left accidentally at a friend’s home early in the morning.

But in that early interview with investigators, Hunte claimed he didn’t even know Charles Wardlow, also 18 — a young man Hunte would later explain he knew as “my sister’s baby’s father” and whom other witnesses described as the nephew of Taylor’s half sister’s boyfriend. Hunte said didn’t know Eric Rivera, then 17. He said he didn’t know Jason Mitchell, then 19 — who had attended a party at Taylor’s home the month before and seen the cash the football player kept on hand. Then there was another name — one Hunte said he didn’t know, either.

Told investigators knew a different story, and that those same men were being interviewed separately at that moment, Hunte then asked: “What do I need to say?”

“The truth,” they replied.

What follows in the police account of that interview — which was released Wednesday — are several pages worth of statements that are blacked out and covered over.

Just what Hunte said then and what he has told since are things Michael Hornung, Hunte’s defense attorney, wouldn’t discuss, citing Judge Dennis Murphy’s gag order in the case.

But at some point in the six months since then, Hunte must have given prosecutors enough of what they were looking for, as Hunte has accepted a plea agreement: 29 years in prison for armed burglary and a lesser charge of second-degree murder. That’s in exchange for his full testimony and cooperation at the upcoming trials of the other suspects.

Rivera, Mitchell and Wardlow still face felony murder and armed burglary charges. All have entered written not-guilty pleas, and as of earlier this week, their trials were scheduled for late August.

Hunte’s plea deal was accepted in a closed courtroom last Friday, where Hornung said he told Taylor’s father, Pedro Taylor, of his client’s remorse.

“It’s what he wanted to do,” Hornung said of Hunte’s plea and promise to testify.

While there’s no clear link in the timing, less than a week after the plea deal, authorities quietly arrested a fifth suspect in the case: 16-year-old Fort Myers resident Timmy Brown.

Brown was taken into custody late Tuesday night by the lead detective from Miami and booked into the Lee County jail early Wednesday morning. He faced a judge in Juvenile Court in Fort Myers and then awaited transport to Miami, where he is expected in Murphy’s courtroom as early as this morning.

Brown is the cousin of Charles Wardlow, drawing even more twisted connections in this case.

That arrest and the deal are only the latest developments in a case that has kept Lee County firmly near the center of a story of a bungled burglary and shooting on the far side of Alligator Alley, in a home that some of the victim’s friends and relatives had been worried wasn’t safe for Taylor.