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Tampa man gets five life sentences for killing three with assault rifle

 
Friends and family of three people shot to death early Saturday morning hold a vigil in December 2014. Angel Luis Perez received five life sentences Friday for the crimes. [Times file (2014)]
Friends and family of three people shot to death early Saturday morning hold a vigil in December 2014. Angel Luis Perez received five life sentences Friday for the crimes. [Times file (2014)]
Published Jan. 19, 2018

TAMPA — One early morning three years ago, Angel Luis Perez burst through the back door of an east Tampa home and fired an AK-47 assault rifle into two people as they lie in their bed.

A 3-year-old boy witnessed the murders.

Perez, high on cocaine, grabbed the boy, then stepped outside and shot his own girlfriend as she sat behind the wheel of a car.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:Tampa man accused of killing three

He drove to Tampa General Hospital, dialing 911 along the way, and begged police to kill him when he arrived.

For those acts, Circuit Judge Michelle Sisco on Friday gave Perez five sentences of life in prison — one each for the murders, one for kidnapping the boy, and one for armed burglary.

The judge noted Perez' indifference to what he had done.

"When you gave your statement to law enforcement, for some perverse reason, you found it comical, you took pleasure in the fact that they cowered in their bed while you murdered them with an AK-47," Sisco said. "The utter lack of humanity is shocking."

A jury this week convicted Perez of three counts of first-degree murder in the Dec. 6, 2014, slayings of Jorge Gort, Brittany Snyder, and Olivia Miller.

Gort, 25, was Perez's brother-in-law. Snyder, 23, was Gort's girlfriend. The couple lived in a home at 2501 N 54th St., where they cared for the young boy — Gort's son and Perez' s nephew.

After the first two shootings, Perez kidnapped the boy and returned to the car where Miller waited. She argued with him and he shot her, too.

He drove her to the hospital with the child in the car.

"Hey, look man, I'm high on coke," he told a 911 call-taker. "I just shot my wife. I killed two people."

"Tell them I'm dangerous," he said later, "and to kill me on sight."

They didn't kill him. But for a while, the state wanted to.

Perez initially faced the death penalty. But questions about his mental health led prosecutors to drop capital punishment.

Perez' defense had argued that because of his mental condition and drug use, he couldn't form the specific intent to commit murder.

A jury thought otherwise.

Though Perez received a life sentence, Sisco allowed relatives and friends of the victims to speak.

Rochelle McDuffie, displayed a framed photograph of Miller, her middle child.

"She's more than a case file or autopsy photos," McDuffie said. "She had a beautiful smile that lit up the darkest room. You could feel her energy or spirit before she bounced through the front door."

She spoke about the 5-year-old son her daughter left behind.

"A vision of him standing by his mother's casket stays in my mind forever," McDuffie said. The kindergartener would often cry on the way to school.

"I miss my mommy," he would say.

Another child, the 3-year-old who witnessed the killings, also struggles with the loss of his parent.

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Gort's sister, Millie Gort, read a letter from the boy, now 6.

"Since my daddy went to heaven, I lost four teeth, started school and played shortstop in baseball," he wrote. "But my daddy and Brittany will never know that because you took them from me."

"When I grow up I want to be a police officer, so I can help take bad people off the street. ... I will never forget what you did. I want you to stay in jail forever."

In an interview with detectives, Perez said he shot Miller, his girlfriend at the time, because she threatened to turn him in for the murders he had just committed. He claimed Gort previously had sex with Miller and he could not get over it, according to an arrest report. He accused Snyder of trying to keep his nephew from visiting Perez's sister.

Perez stayed silent through much of the hour-long court hearing Friday. He had planned to read a statement, but changed his mind, his attorney told the judge.

"Angel? Angel? Look at me, please," said Kaitlin Lutzen, a close friend of Snyder.

Perez stared at the defense table.

"Was it worth it?" Lutzen asked him. "That's a question you're going to have to ask yourself all day, every day."

Contact Dan Sullivan at dsullivan@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3386. Follow @TimesDan.