Revisiting The Ice Cream Man Retrial
Michael Keetley was dissatisfied with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's investigation into his shooting. So he launched his own investigation.
This is another repost of a March 2024 Substack post I did. Florida v. Michael Keetley (a/k/a The Ice Cream Man). It’s a tale of bad investigations, which led to a revenge-gone-wrong mass shooting. It’s the type of case that could be the basis for a film (think Falling Down). I first learned of this case in February 2020 during the first trial, which resulted in a mistrial. The retrial happened in March 2023 and resulted in the conviction of The Ice Cream Man. Michael Keetley, 55, is doing a life without parole sentence at the Columbia Annex in Lake City, Florida.
At the core of the rather memorable Florida v. Michael Keetley retrial were four lousy investigations. Had two of these investigations yielded different findings, perhaps six men would not have been shot in the early morning hours of Thanksgiving 2010.
The Sunshine State has a je ne sais quoi about giving the American public unbelievable trials. Casey Anthony, George Zimmerman, Curtis Reeves, and the Dan Markel-Adelson Family saga come to mind. But the one that possibly tops them all is the Ice Cream Man Retrial: Florida v. Michael Keetley, which occurred in March 2023.
The Ice Cream Man Gets Aired Out
The story begins in January 2010 in Hillsborough County, Florida in the Tampa Bay metropolitan area. Michael Keetley, 39, a former Delta Airlines mechanic, had changed careers and was self-employed as an Ice Cream Man. Keetley’s route took him through some rough neighborhoods in southern Hillsborough County: Old Sun City, Ruskin, and Wimauma. He worked it alone in his purple 1982 Ford Econoline ice cream van.
On January 23, 2010, Keetley was shot while working his ice cream route. A teenage female flagged him down in Old Sun City on the pretext of buying ice cream. Next thing Keetley knew, two masked gunmen robbed him of the $12 he had in his wallet. Then they shot him five times.
Keetley was hospitalized and underwent multiple surgeries over the next several months. His story garnered local media attention. Donation jars for his medical expenses were set up in businesses around the area.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office was the investigating agency. The case was assigned to Detective Ron Nolan, who was planning to retire. Nolan testified Keetley said the three individuals that victimized him were African American. Curiously, Nolan developed no suspects even though the shooting happened in broad daylight and police had announced a $25,000 reward. Nolan retired in June 2010.
The Keetley-Beckwith Investigation
By Summer 2010, Michael Keetley had healed up sufficiently that he could return to working the ice cream route. However, it was with enhanced security measures. David Beckwith, a neighbor with three felony convictions on his record, had learned of the January 2010 shooting and had linked up with Keetley. Both Beckwith and Keetley practiced target shooting on abandoned vehicles that were scattered around the Keetley Family’s 20-acre rural Wimauma property. Now they were back out on the ice cream route, with Beckwith acting as Keetley’s body guard. And the duo were packing more firepower than the French military. Their firearms included a .22, a .380, and .45—all handguns.
Keetley was extremely dissatisfied with the official Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office investigation. So he and Beckwith launched their own investigation. The ice cream route meandered through housing projects, drug alleys, and areas marked by gang graffiti.
“We never went to any great neighborhoods,” Beckwith testified years later.
Beckwith testified that Keetley would aggressively question customers along the route. In one incident, Keetley demanded that a young African American female customer produce a photo of her older sister who Keetley suspected might have been involved. Keetley grew irritated with her and she eventually produced the photo, at which point the Ice Cream Man determined the sister wasn’t one of the perpetrators.
“He got that little girl upset for no reason,” Beckwith testified.
The investigation produced a promising lead: a local thug named Creeper. Legal name Omar Bailon, he was also known as Creeper de Ocean Mist, as in Ocean Mist Court, the street he lived on. Apparently, a source named Bubba provided information that Creeper was at a party bragging about airing out the Ice Cream Man.
“It came up quite a bit,” Beckwith testified about Creeper’s name.
Eventually, Beckwith and Keetley had a falling out while they were working the ice cream route through a bad neighborhood. Beckwith was uneasy with the area and Keetley thought that was funny. Beckwith demanded Keetley stop the ice cream van so he could get out. Keetley refused. Then Beckwith grabbed the .45 pistol and put it to Keetley’s temple. Keetley stopped the ice cream van. Beckwith removed the magazine from the pistol, threw the gun and magazine at Keetley, and stormed off.
A Thanksgiving Mass Shooting
On Thanksgiving Eve 2010, a group of Latino males held a drink-up on the dimly lit front porch of 604 Ocean Mist Court, a single-family residence, in Ruskin. Beer, cannabis, and cocaine were consumed that night. The men played cards. The drink-up continued well into the early morning hours of the following day, Thanksgiving.
Ocean Mist Court was the home of Creeper and the drink-up attendees were acquainted with him. However, Creeper did not reside at 604 Ocean Mist Court and was not present at the drink-up.
Just after 2 a.m., a dark-colored minivan pulled up in front and a man wearing a shirt that read “Sheriff” exited. He was wielding what several of the men described as a shotgun or a rifle. The gunman demanded that the men show him their IDs. He asked if any of them were Creeper. The gunman made them kneel. And then the shooting began.
Juan Guitron and Sergio Guitron were hit by bullets and killed. Daniel Beltran, Richard Cantu, Ramon Galan, and Gonzalo Guevara were wounded. Jose Rodriguez was the only person on the front porch who was not injured. Several of the victims had been Michael Keetley’s customers and at least one had donated money for his medical bills.
Two More Lousy Investigations
The Ocean Mist Court mass shooting was assigned to Detective Jose Lugo of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office. A large man, Lugo testified with a thick accent and had the demeanor of a tortoise.
Lugo liked to cut corners with his investigations. He conducted unrecorded interviews at the Sheriff’s station despite having access to rooms with recording capabilities. Lugo prepared his own photo lineups, eschewing the standard “double blind” approach, and showed them to witnesses.
Meanwhile, Jose Rodriguez, the lone uninjured survivor, began his own investigation. Soon, a text message was spreading around southern Hillsborough County. The message contained a photo of Keetley and indicated that he was responsible for the shooting. Rodriguez visited the surviving victims in the hospital and showed them the text message. This is called Post-Event Information and can significantly influence recollections of what actually occurred.
And right on cue, Lugo arrived at the hospital to interview the surviving victims. Gonzalo Guevara told Lugo he was “2,000 percent sure” Keetley was the shooter. Lugo quickly zeroed in on Keetley.
Keetley didn’t have an alibi. He also had a Chevy Venture minivan, which was consistent with the vehicle described by the surviving victims. In fact, Keetley had the minivan repainted the day after the shooting. But he repainted the vehicle from green to blue, and not a color that would look distinctly different (e.g., white). The ostensible purpose was to enhance the minivan’s resale value.
The surviving victims’ descriptions of the shooter and his firearm were all over the map. One victim gave a physical description of the shooter that was much taller and heavier than Keetley. Another victim said the shooter had a shotgun. And another said the gunman wielded a rifle. Yet only .45 cartridge casings were found at the crime scene. Moreover, when the shooting occurred just after 2 a.m., it was extremely dark and the drink-up attendees had been getting their fade on for several hours.
Michael Keetley was arrested in December 2010. It would be nearly a decade before his case went to trial.
A Mistrial
Keetley went to trial in February 2020. His attorney, Lyann Goudie, very competently cross-examined the State’s witnesses. Perhaps the most memorable moment was when she questioned David Beckwith about receiving information about Bubba.
“Ohhh, Bubba,” Beckwith replied with a big smile on his face. “The piece of shit White trash Mexican.”
Keetley asked Goudie not to make a closing argument, and she obliged. The strategy worked: The jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of not guilty. After the trial, Goudie became a Hillsborough County Circuit Judge. Thus, Keetly needed to find new legal counsel.
Keetley went through several attorneys before landing lead defense attorney Rick Escobar and second chair John Grant. Both Escobar and Grant were former prosecutors turned private practice criminal defense attorneys. Escobar gained notoriety for representing Curtis Reeves in the movie theater shooting case in Wesley Chapel, Florida. Esocbar secured an acquittal for Reeves in 2022.
A Retrial For The Ages
The retrial occurred in March 2023. Rick Escobar came out of the gate swinging at the State’s witnesses. Escobar clearly had studied David Beckwith’s performance on the witness stand in the first trial and knew exactly how to use that to his advantage. And predictably, Beckwith provided comic relief.
“Tell the jury what Gimped Up means,” Escobar queried Beckwith about how he described Keetley to the cops.
“It means he didn’t move normal,” Beckwith replied, involuntarily spasming as he testified.
“Can you give them any better description than that?” Escobar asked.
“No, I can’t,” Beckwith replied.
Escobar continued to work on Beckwith.
“Michael Keetley, in your words, was F’d Up, right?” Escobar asserted, pointing at the defendant.
“Yeah. I’m F’d Up. Can you tell?” Beckwith answered.
“We’ll let the jury decide,” Escobar replied in a mic drop moment.
Escobar moved to Beckwith’s criminal history.
“You hadn’t told him that you were a three-time convicted felon, right? Escobar queried.
“Oh, he already knew that,” Beckwith replied.
“So, was that part of an application process?” Escobar queried.
“Okay, sure.” Beckwith replied and then audibly sighed. “You wanna be a smart ass, I’ll be a smart ass back,” Beckwith retorted.
Judge Christopher Sabella admonished Beckwith to just answer the questions.
Escobar queried Beckwith about gang tags in the Ocean Mist Court neighborhood.
“I tag it, my turf?” Escobar asked.
“Does that mean if I go on the wall downstairs and piss on it, it’s mine?” Beckwith replied.
Escobar moved on to a statement Beckwith had made about what should happen to the people responsible for shooting the Ice Cream Man.
“If anybody wants to shoot anybody else and harm another person…Then yeah, I would like to see anyone tied to a stump and let the alligators and snakes do the rest,” Beckwith testified.
On Trial Day 10, tensions came to a head. Lt. Jose Lugo, the case agent, was on the witness stand. Lugo’s investigation could be described as lacking and shoddy. There was a debate between the prosecution and defense about the measurements taken at the crime scene outside the presence of the jury. Escobar repeatedly tried to explain his rationale for cross-examining Lugo about the shortcomings in his investigation.
“No, no, no, no, no. We’re gonna take a 5-minute break because you’re not asking me questions,” Sabella said, voice rising. Escobar attempted to interject. “We’re taking a 5-minute break!” Sabella snapped as he hastily exited to chambers.
It was also revealed that Jose Rodriguez, the lone uninjured survivor who had circulated Keetley’s image after the shooting, had skipped town and was unavailable to testify. Hence, his televised testimony from the 2020 trial was shown to the jury.
The jury learned the Ocean Mist Court residence had been shot up two weeks before the Thanksgiving shooting. Daniel Beltran, one of the surviving victims, disclosed that he was testifying with the prospect of getting consideration for an ongoing unrelated criminal case.
The jury saw many photos of the Keetley Family’s Wimauma property. The primary residence was a cluttered mess. Firearms, including pistols, rifles, and shotguns, were haphazardly strewn around the house. A shooting target hung on a kitchen door. Abandoned vehicles littered the property. (Sadly, most of them were American makes and models).
The jury returned a guilty verdict on all six counts (two counts of murder and four counts of attempted murder). In May 2023, Judge Christopher Sabella sentenced Keetley to life in prison.
Reconciling The Case
Cognitive Dissonance is the state of being able to consider two or more inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes simultaneously. Michael Keetley was victimized by thugs and had a motive for revenge. His investigation led him to Ocean Mist Court. However, the surviving victims’ descriptions of the shooter and his firearm did not match Keetley or the evidence found at the scene of the crime. That one victim was “2,000 percent sure” Keetley was the shooter after being exposed to significant Post Event Information causes one to be skeptical. David Beckwith, the prosecution’s star witness, was a train wreck. Add in the many shortcomings of Jose Lugo’s sloppy investigation and there seems to be a lot of reasonable doubt about whether Michael Keetley committed the 2010 Thanksgiving shooting on Ocean Mist Court.