The five people arrested in Sunday's fatal shooting of a Fort Myers man knew their victim and planned a robbery that lead to his death, police said.
Edey Emmanuel Cardenas, 21, Roger Ludenas, 21, Taquan Ramel Brown, 27, and Cheyenne Nicole Marron, 22, all of Fort Myers, and Mario Joel Benitez, 22, of Cape Coral, were arrested Tuesday and are facing charges of second degree murder, attempted second degree murder, armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery.
Their first appearance was planned Wednesday afternoon and they will be arraigned June 18.
The five are suspects in the fatal shooting of Daryl D. Scott, 32, at 2:30 Sunday morning at 322 Louise Avenue. They were arrested throughout Tuesday at various locations by the Fort Myers Police Department, police said.
"The victim and the suspects do know each other," said Capt. Jay Rodriguez of the FMPD's operations/investigations bureau. "There's a variety of different relationships within them but all of them knew the victim."
The fatal shooting of Scott came via a robbery, Rodriguez said. "Some certain of these individuals acted in the set-up," he said. "Some, obviously, acted in the homicide. This was pretty much in-depth, it wasn't just a 'let's do it now' ... there was some planning to it."
Rodriguez said the resolution of the case came from quick action by the department, which he said worked "around the clock" gathering leads and then making the arrests within two days.
"It's really leads," he said of the arrests. "That's why we have cold cases, we don't have leads. I really want to stress, when I say we started working leads, you hear us say detectives worked around the clock. I'm not kidding. You don't solve a case like this in 48 hours with five arrests."
Detectives, some of whom Rodrigues said are mothers themselves, worked all day on Sunday, Mother's Day, through that night, all day Monday and into Tuesday.
Witness statements were also important, Rodriguez said. He added that some of that information was withheld to allow police time to build a case and find the suspects by preventing possible fake alibis.
"That helped catch these people," he said,
Scott's death was the fourth homicide in Fort Myers this year, Rodriguez said, and is one of two unsolved fatalities.
The family of Scott also expressed gratitude to the police, Rodriguez said, about the quick arrests.
"It will help them bring closure," he said. "But it won't bring Mr. Scott back."
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