Florida Keys business owner sentenced to life in football coach’s son’s murder
A Monroe County judge sentenced a Key West building owner to life in prison without the possibility of parole Thursday in the shooting death of a former star high school football player whose father coaches the team.
Lloyd Preston Brewer III, 60, shot and killed 21-year-old Garrett Hughes around midnight, Feb. 13, 2023, in the rear parking lot of Conch Town Liquor and Lounge as the bar was letting out after the Super Bowl had ended.
The murder, for which a jury convicted Brewer on Jan. 21, shocked the Southernmost City. Hughes was a former star football player for the Key West High School Conchs, where his father coaches.
A first-degree murder conviction, under Florida law, carries a mandatory life sentence without parole.
His attorney, Jerome Ballarotto, said he is appealing the conviction.
“We feel very strongly it will be reversed,” Ballorotto told the Herald Thursday.
At the time of the shooting, Brewer owned the North Roosevelt Boulevard building that houses Conch Town Liquor and Lounge, but not the bar itself. Both men were drinking and watching the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles hours earlier.
Brewer claimed he shot Hughes once in the torso in self-defense, telling Key West police after the confrontation that he feared for his life in the moments before he pulled the trigger, according to video of the interview viewed by the Miami Herald.
He said he went outside because he noticed a large group of people, including Hughes, gathering in the parking lot. When Brewer walked outside, he saw Hughes urinating on the wall, and he verbally confronted him, he told police.
“He came at me in a threatening manner and appeared he was reaching for something on his side,” Brewer told detectives.
Prosecutors said security camera footage and eyewitness testimony say otherwise.
The footage shows Brewer walk toward Hughes, turn back, then walk back toward him with his hand on the butt of a handgun he had in his waistband, said Chief Assistant Monroe County State Attorney Joseph Mansfield. As he got nearer to Hughes, Brewer drew the weapon in a two-hand stance and fired twice, striking Hughes once, Mansfield said.
“Lloyd Brewer initially walked away, but instead of continuing to disengage, he turned around and chose to confront the victim again,” Mansfield said in a statement Thursday. “He closed the distance, drew his weapon, and fired. The jury saw exactly what happened and rejected his claims.”
Hughes’ friends quickly rendered aid, according to police. Paramedics took him to Lower Keys Medical Center, where he died while doctors prepped him to be airlifted to a Miami-Dade trauma hospital, according to court documents.
“Garrett Hughes was shot in front of lifelong friends and his own brother, a moment that will forever live with those who witnessed it,” Assistant State Attorney Colleen Dunne, who leads the office’s major crimes unit, said in a statement. “His family and friends will carry this loss forever, and this tragedy has deeply affected our entire community.”
