The Ice Cream Man Cometh for His Revenge

On January 23, 2010, Michael Keetley was making his usual rounds through a southeast Hillsborough County neighborhood in his purple ice cream truck when he was robbed and shot. The attack left him partially disabled, with restricted hand movements. In the months that followed, he had multiple surgeries to repair the damage. He underwent one surgery to repair fractured fingers on his left hand and a humerus fracture to his right arm. A little over a month later, he had a bone graft surgery on his left hand and a bullet removed from his back. The following June, he had surgery on his left hand to repair a scar that had formed from bone graft surgery.

Keetley believed that a man who was known to many as “Creep” or “Creeper” was responsible for the attack on him. According to prosecutors on the case, Keetley made it his mission to find his attackers and get payback for his suffering. He allegedly finally found them at an address on Ocean Mist Court in Ruskin.

On Thanksgiving, 2010, a dark van pulled up as a group of men at the address sat on the front porch, talking and playing cards. According to one of the eyewitnesses, a man got out of the van. He was wearing a shirt that said “police” or “sheriff” and he had a long gun in his hands. He asked for “Creep” and demanded they all lay on the ground. No sooner had they complied than he began to shoot.

Juan and Sergio Guitron, two brothers known to most as “Magic” and “Spider” were killed. Four others were injured.

When detectives searched the Wimauma property where Keetley lived with his parents, they found a dilapidated van. Inside, there were spent bullets and shell casings. An exam by forensic experts revealed that some of them matched the weapon used in the murders, but that weapon was never found.

Other evidence found included a notebook in which Keetley had written an address for a man known as “Creeper” on Ocean Mist Court, though the street number was different from where the shooting took place. The notation was confirmed as Keetley’s handwriting by experts and his fingerprints were also found on the page. A computer recovered from his parents’ home also revealed hundreds of searches for the name “Creep” or “Ocean Mist.”

Prosecutors claim that Michael Keetley killed Juan and Sergio Guitron and tried to kill four others at the Ruskin, Florida home on Thanksgiving Day, 2010. According to his defense team, witnesses had the wrong man, but it would seem it was Keetley himself who had been mistaken if he is, in fact, the shooter. The prosecution believes that Keetley was convinced that his victims were the same men who shot him four times in order to steal the paltry amount of twelve dollars from him in January 2010 while he was operating his ice cream truck.

In her opening statement to the court, Assistant State Attorney Michelle Doherty said:

“The motive for this case simply is revenge, retaliation. He wanted to shoot the people who shot him. And he became obsessed with finding the people who did this.”

The defense contended that Keetley was not the man who had shot anyone. They maintain that he was only a suspect in the case because the surviving victims had identified the wrong man as the shooter.

Defense Attorney Lyann Goudie spoke on behalf of Keetley, saying:

“This is a case of misidentification, unreliable eyewitness testimony, and circumstantial evidence and it’s not enough to convict in the state of Florida and not enough to convict anywhere in the United States.”

Still, defense attorney Goudie tried to raise doubts about the reliability of the witnesses who identified Keetley as the man who shot their group. He pointed out how dark it was, with only the porch light shining across the yard. Additionally, the victims had all been drinking, smoking marijuana, and snorting cocaine. She cast doubts on how lucid they could have been in their altered states or remembered anything about an attack that lasted for mere seconds.

Of the four survivors, only two claimed they could identify Keetley. The others said they didn’t get a good look at the gunmen. One even failed to pick him out of a display of images despite having previously bought ice cream from his truck.

However, text messages began circulating among those acquainted with the victims. They included a photo of Keetley and accused him of committing the crime. With Keetley on their radar, a detective visited the hospital room of one victim and showed him a series of mugshots that included Keetley. The man positively identified Keetley, saying he was “2,000 percent sure” he was the shooter.

By 2019, Keetley’s family had exhausted their funds on lawyers and the lawyers had withdrawn from the case for personal reasons, leaving Keetley to be declared indigent and represented by Public Defenders Julianne Holt and Jennifer Spardley. They petitioned the court to wave the death penalty for Keetley and their request was granted.

By February 5, 2020, a twelve-person jury was finally seated in the case. It included nine women and three men, as well as three female alternates. Opening statements began the following day. After nearly two weeks, the jury began deliberations. They lasted seven hours. In the end, the judge declared a mistrial after the jury told him they were completely deadlocked and Keetley’s retrial was scheduled for May 2021. Later, it was postponed until June 2022. Only time will tell how this Thanksgiving Day shooting turns out. In the meantime, Keetley remains in jail awaiting determination of his fate.