RIVERVIEW — The amateur rap music video was supposed to feature a staged kidnapping and fake blood.
But in the early morning darkness Monday, real gunshots rang out as the camera rolled, killing a young mother of two and injuring her boyfriend. By the end of the day, deputies charged a man with murder.
An arrest report added to court records this week lays out the investigation that led to the arrest of 20-year old Jordan Jaime Silver in the shootings of Haley Cox, 23, and her boyfriend, Erik Bronowski, 22.
A key question remained unanswered, though: Why?
“I don’t know,” Silver said when a stunned witness asked him that question after the shooting, according to the report by a Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office detective.
The video session started Sunday night at the Wimauma home of Giovinie Bosques and his girlfriend. Bosques later told detectives that Silver, who Bosques knew as “J,” arrived with a black semiautomatic handgun and what appeared to be a laser pointer attached, the report says.
Bosques, Silver, Bronowski and Cox left the house in Bosques’ girlfriend’s Kia Optima and headed to a Tampa Electric Co. power line easement off Clement Pride Boulevard, in the Southfork Lakes community. They had water bottles filled with fake blood and a Canon camera.
“Mr. Bosques advised the rap video was based on a staged kidnapping of himself, and all parties involved were aware the video was theatrical in nature,” the report says. “Mr. Bosques advised there was never a mention of shooting anyone.”
Detectives found the Canon camera later and reviewed the footage.
In one segment, Silver, can be seen holding a dark-colored, semi-automatic handgun. Toward the end of the clip, he appears to be acting “erratically,” the report says, and Bosques can be heard telling him to calm down.
“Bosques and Bronowski advised that Jordan Silver was pacing and hiding behind bushes for no apparent reason while they were attempting to film the rap video,” the report says.
In the next clip, Bosques and Bronowski are putting fake blood on Bosques. Cox is apparently holding the camera and can be heard asking how she should hold it.
Then, a single gunshot rings out and the camera falls to the ground. Bosques picks up the camera and begins to run.
“Why’d you do that?” Bosques asks Silver, according to the report.
“I don’t know,” Silver can be heard replying. “We gotta go.”
Still holding the camera, Bosques appears to stop running and the two begin arguing about leaving the area. Bosques continues to ask, “Why’d you do that?”
Soon after, three more gunshots ring out. Bosques shouts “No!” multiple times and appears to drop the camera.
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Explore all your optionsIn an interview with detectives, Bosques said he was putting fake blood on himself and Cox was holding the camera when he heard a gunshot. Bosques turned and saw Cox lying on the ground and Silver holding the handgun. Bosques said he and Bronowski ran toward the Kia, then Silver fired at Bronowski.
Bosques said he ran into the nearby neighborhood and knocked on several doors to get someone to call police. He was successful at a home on Leland Groves Drive.
In surveillance video collected from that home, Bosques can be seen knocking on the door, then Silver — shirtless and apparently out of breath — appears behind him and says something about getting to a car. When Bosques says he’s trying to get police to come, Silver runs away.
Back at the shooting scene, Bronowski was able to call 911, telling a dispatcher at 3:59 a.m. that someone had shot him and his girlfriend in a field. Deputies who responded found him with gunshot wounds in the chest and thigh. He was holding a bandanna and a bottle of the fake blood.
Deputies found Cox’s body nearby with an apparent gunshot wound in her cheek.
At Tampa General Hospital, Bronowski told detectives he was participating in the video shoot with Bosques, whom he knew as “Game,” and Silver. Bronowski said he met Silver for the first time that morning. He confirmed Silver shot him and Cox, according to the report.
Deputies found Silver hiding under a cooking grill in the backyard of a home on Leland Groves Drive and arrested him on charges of trespassing and loitering. In an interview, he told detectives he’d been paid $30 to help with the music video and ran when he heard gunshots.
“When given multiple opportunities to explain his involvement, he denied knowing any of the people he was doing the rap video with,” the report says. He also denied holding a gun or shooting anyone, even when confronted with the video evidence.
Silver was booked in the Hillsborough County jail later that day on charges of second-degree murder with a firearm and attempted first-degree murder. A judge set his bond at $502,000. He remained in jail Thursday. Records show he lives in Brandon.
Cox, who is also known by her maiden name Portner, had a son and daughter and son, ages 4 and 3, according to her Facebook page. She lived in Riverview, was from Tennessee and listed her job as a stay-at-home mother.
“She will never get to see her two beautiful babies grow up nor will they have her throughout life,” Cyndi Viverito, an extended family member, wrote in a public Facebook post this week. “Our family is hurting beyond comprehension for such a beautiful soul to be gone so soon in such a violent way.”
The post, which asked for privacy for the family, described Cox as a loving mother, daughter, granddaughter, niece and cousin. Her kids were “her world.”
“She may have had a few bumps in her roads but she was and will always be LOVED,” the post says, “and we as a family will see that justice is served in Haley’s honor.”