Daytona Beach, FL – A 23-year-old Daytona Beach man is acquitted by a Volusia County jury for stealing a vehicle from an elderly man who died soon after it was taken.
23-year-old Demckalis Few was found not guilty last week of 3rd degree felony murder and grand theft in the September 2013 carjacking that police say led to the death of 94-year-old Vittario Vecchiarelli, according to 7th Circuit State Attorney spokesman Spencer Hathaway.
Few and another man – 19-year-old Dominick Jackson – were arrested by the Daytona Beach Police Department in August 2014, nearly a year after Vecchiarelli’s death.
DBPD says Vecchiarelli had pulled up in his silver 2003 Chevrolet Cavalier to the mailbox of his home on the 300 block of Woodland Avenue on the afternoon of September 12th when the suspects came out of a nearby truck which had also been stolen and took the car.
Witnesses told police they found Vecchiarelli lying on the ground gasping for air as the suspects left in his car – which Vecchiarelli had left with the engine on while going to get the mail – at a high rate of speed.
Paramedics transported Vecchiarelli from the scene to Halifax Health Medical Center, where he died around an hour later from what DBPD now says is a heart attack triggered by the stress of trying to stop Few and Jackson from taking his car.
Prior to the arrests on this case, Few and Jackson were each already locked up at Volusia County Jail on unrelated charges from another case.
VCJ records show Few’s been arrested 7 other times since June 2011, primarily for grand theft auto and burglary charges.
Jackson entered a no contest plea in Vecchiarelli’s death and faces up to 20 years in prison when he’s sentenced on December 14th.
According to his arrest report, Jackson’s fingerprints were found in the stolen truck that DBPD thinks was used by him and Few just before they took Vecchiarelli’s car. That truck was found the day after Vecchiarelli’s death abandoned in Ormond Beach.
Mugshots below are courtesy of VCJ.
Demckalis Few
Dominick Jackson
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