Cops suspected he killed his mother. Then he was arrested in beating of elderly man
Michael McPherson, 21, suspected of shooting his mother to death in Jacksonville earlier this week, is also accused of viciously beating an 86-year-old man in Key West three days before his mother’s death.
After police found Stacey McPherson-Dillon dead in her Jacksonville home Wednesday, they named her son as the suspect and alerted the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office that he was likely headed to the Keys, where mother and son used to live.
A day later, Monroe County deputies spotted McPherson and pulled over his Toyota SUV on U.S. 1 in Key Largo. It turned out he was already wanted in Key West.
Monroe deputies found a handgun inside McPherson’s car, Adam Linhardt, sheriff’s office spokesman, said. The description of the SUV matched that provided by Jacksonville authorities, as did the license plate number.
According to a press release from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, McPherson-Dillon, 45, was shot at least once. Patrol officers and medics arrived at her San Servera Drive home around 6:45 p.m. Wednesday and found her body.
“The investigation has led detectives to believe that Michael Joseph McPherson is the suspect in the murder,” Christian Hancock, spokesman for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, said in a statement released Friday.
McPherson and McPherson-Dillon used to live in Key West and are members of a well-known Southernmost City family.
Michael’s uncle, Morgan McPherson, was mayor of Key West from 2005 to 2009. His father, Benjamin McPherson, is the former chief financial officer of Historic Tours of America, which runs trolley, bus and boat tours in Key West, St. Augustine, San Diego, Washington, D.C. and Nashville.
Benjamin McPherson and McPherson-Dillion divorced in 2009, according to court records.
Neither Benjamin nor Morgan McPherson could be reached for comment.
On Sunday, three days before his mother died, the younger McPherson was back in Key West visiting friends. Around 2 p.m., he was sitting in a yard belonging to Peter Diaz, 86, with Diaz and another man, Ray Canalejo, according to a Key West police report.
Canalejo got out of his chair to move trash cans from one side of the yard to another.
While Canalejo was gone, McPherson stood up from his chair and looked directly at Diaz, according to a Key West Police Department report. Without warning, he began punching Diaz, hitting him about six times, leaving several cuts and bruises, and knocking the man unconscious.
“Diaz stated during the attack that he had never been so scared in his life,” Officer Edward Cuneo wrote in his report. “Diaz also told me he had never been hit so hard in his life and heard bells and saw stars,” the officer wrote.
While hitting Diaz, McPherson stepped on his foot so he could not get up from his chair, Cuneo said.
Canalejo pulled McPherson off Diaz. Diaz told police that McPherson left without a struggle, but began to cry and yelled, “What did I do?”
Other than some traffic violations, McPherson does not have a criminal record, according to the clerk of the court websites for both Monroe and Duval counties.
Cops asked Diaz if McPherson had been drinking that day, and he said none of the men sitting in his yard consumed any alcohol.
“The attack was unprovoked, and Diaz still does not know why McPherson attacked him,” Cuneo stated.
McPherson is in Monroe County jail on a $10,000 bond on a felony charge of battery on a person 65 years of age or older. Linhardt said it “has yet to be scheduled” when he will be sent to Duval County on the murder charge.
