Double murder case shook the Keys in 2015. An appeals court just reversed the conviction
The double homicide conviction of Jeremy Macauley, accused of gunning down a Florida Keys couple in October 2015 over a cocaine extortion attempt, was reversed by an appeals court Wednesday.
The Third District Court of Appeal ruled that because sworn testimony from a jailhouse witness was ordered inadmissible during his November 2017 trial, Macauley must have a new trial.
The witness told prosecutors in a sworn statement that Kristian Demblans, twin brother of Adrian Demblans, the accused getaway driver the night of the murders, told him he was the one who shot the couple, Carlos Ortiz and Tara Rosado, not Macauley.
The witness, Eric “Bama” Lansford, however, refused to testify at the 11th hour during the trial, citing threats to his life. Monroe County Circuit Judge Luis Garcia would not allow the jury to hear his testimony since he didn’t show up to court and his statement was not a deposition.
Twelve jurors convicted Macauley, 37, of murdering Ortiz and Rosado in November 2017. Garcia sentenced him to two life prison terms plus 30 years for armed robbery.
Rosado’s family is disappointed in the appeal’s court ruling, but said Wednesday they are confident prosecutors will be able to convince a new jury that Macauley is guilty.
“We have confidence in our attorneys,” Kate Farley, Rosado’s sister, said.
Prosecutors said Macauley killed the couple because Ortiz was trying to extort money from him. Macauley, a charter fishing boat mate, found a large amount of cocaine while on a fishing trip and brought it back to shore.
He employed Ortiz and other friends, including the Demblans brothers, to break it up and sell it locally. Prosecutors say Ortiz wanted more money than Macauley was paying him and threatened to go to the police if he didn’t agree to his demands.
It all came to a head the night of Oct. 15, 2015, when Monroe County sheriff’s detectives say Adrian Demblans drove Macauley to the couple’s Cuba Road home in Tavernier. Macauley, according to prosecutors, went inside and shot them both once in the head with a .45-caliber handgun.
Rosado was 26, and Ortiz, 30.
Rosado’s three children were sleeping in another room, but physically unharmed, during the murders.
The case, one of the most high-profile crimes in the Keys in recent memory, was prosecuted with attorneys from the Palm Beach State Attorney’s Office because Monroe’s state attorney, Dennis Ward, was in private practice at the time Macauley was arrested and had briefly discussed representing him.
It’s unclear if the same prosecutors will be on the case for the new trial. The governor’s office will make that decision, said Palm Beach Assistant State Attorney Brian Hernandes, who was on the original trial team.
“However, since the conflict still exists, I would expect our office to be appointed,” he said Wednesday night.
Prosecutors will have to try the case within 90 days of when the governor issues the decision.
Macauley’s attorney, Ed O’Donnell Sr., said he’s relieved by the Third DCA decision, and said he thinks the jury would have acquitted his client if they had heard Lansford’s testimony.
“I think it will make a difference in how the next trial goes,” O’Donnell said.
Macauley and Adrian Demblans were arrested in March 2016.
Demblans, 39, ended up pleading guilty to accessory after the fact of a felony and testified against Macauley during the trial. He faced 30 years in prison if his case went before a jury.
Demblans testified that he drove Macauley to and from Rosado’s house and threw the .45 into a Key Largo canal after the murders. The gun was found by a snorkeler a month after the shootings.
In the days leading up to the slayings, Ortiz sent Macauley a series of text messages demanding money in exchange for him not going to the cops about the cocaine. The drugs, anywhere from 12 to 15 kilograms, were found offshore months before the killings by Macauley while he was working as a mate aboard the Sea Horse charter boat, which is docked at Whale Harbor Marina in Islamorada.
Ortiz also sent blackmail texts to Sea Horse captain Rick Rodriguez, who has not been charged in the case and has repeatedly denied knowing anything about the cocaine. Law enforcement, however, including Sheriff Rick Ramsay, has maintained they believe he was involved in bringing the load back to shore.
Rodriguez knew both Macauley and Demblans. He transferred ownership of one of his vessels, the Tag ‘Em, to Demblans in 2013. Demblans, also a fishing captain, renamed the boat the Reel G.
After shooting the couple, prosecutors say Macauley took Ortiz’s iPhone out of his pocket because he thought it contained the blackmail texts. That phone was also tossed into a canal. But, it turned out the phone that contained the damning messages was an Asus Zenfone that was left on the bed beside the two bodies.
The investigation took a strange twist in October 2016, however, when Lansford gave prosecutors and detectives a sworn statement that Kristian Demblans told him he, not Macauley, shot Ortiz and Rosado, and that his twin was going “up the road for him.”
At the time of the alleged jailhouse confession, Lansford and Kristian Demblans were in county lockup together. Kristian Demblans had just been arrested on cocaine and heroin dealing charges.
O’Donnell said Lansford’s statement was credible because he had nothing to gain by relaying the narrative to law enforcement. He was a month away from being released from a jail sentence on a burglary charge and had no deal he could have made with prosecutors.
Lansford said that what prompted him to come forward was that Kristian Demblans told him he would have killed the children too had he known they were in the house.
“And he said, so he went over there and he shot them. And he said if the kids would have come out of the room, he would have shot them too. And that’s what really got me, because that’s really horrible,” the inmate told then-Chief Assistant State Attorney Manny Madruga. “And I could see in his face. ... You know I know he did it. I could just tell by his face. He looked me dead in the eye and was so, so.
“It gives me chills just thinking about it,” he said.
Lansford was supposed to be one of the defense’s key witnesses for the trial, but he texted O’Donnell the day he was supposed to show up saying he wasn’t coming because someone threatened to kill him if he did, O’Donnell said.
Kristian Demblans denied to prosecutors that he told Lansford he was the triggerman in the crime. Prosecutors tried unsuccessfully to exclude Lansford from testifying at the trial, arguing any conversation he had with Kristian Demblans was hearsay and the accusation that he fired the fatal shots lacked corroboration.
However, when he didn’t come to court to testify, Judge Garcia denied O’Donnell’s motion to have his sworn testimony admitted as evidence for the jury to hear because it was not a deposition.
“I think we would have won the case if he ruled the other way,” O’Donnell said.
This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 3:31 PM.
