Anthawn Ragan Jr. made headlines more than a decade ago when a robbery at a nail salon near North Miami went wrong and a 10-year-old boy was killed by a bullet that police believe was meant for his father.

But it was the execution of a man at a motel on the western edge of North Miami three weeks earlier during what police said was a violent month-long crime spree, that may cost Ragan his life.

Ragan, 30, who turned to a life of crime prior to his teens and while his parents were incarcerated, is facing the death penalty for the 2013 murder of Luis Miguel Perez. Police say Perez, 21, was ambushed and shot twice by Ragan in the stairwell of a Motel Seven. As he stumbled up a flight of steps to an exterior hallway closer to his room, several more bullets were pumped into his body by another shooter standing over Perez.

“F... , we here for you,” a witness told police Ragan said as he fired his semi-automatic handgun into Perez. Another witness said they heard the other shooter say he unloaded his clip into Perez.

Now, almost a dozen years after Perez was killed and the child was murdered, Ragan will get his day in court. His trial on a first-degree premeditated murder charge for the killing of Perez is set to begin Monday before Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Marisa Tinkler-Mendez.

Any link between Ragan and Perez hasn’t been shared publicly by state prosecutors. But police summaries in the trove of evidence collected in the case over the years indicate the men knew may have known each other and that the motive in the shooting was something other than robbery.

A friend of Perez’s who walked across the street to a convenience store with him to buy some cigars moments before the shooting told police Perez had about $800 in his pocket. The shooters left it behind.

Ragan, who was believed to be a member of an Opa-locka gang known as “21 Jump,” also didn’t bother grabbing the key to room #208 where Perez lived. Perez dropped it on the concrete landing next to where he was felled. Police believe Perez was a small-time drug dealer who sold mostly weed and some MDMA, more commonly referred to as Molly, from his motel room.

Ragan’s lead defense attorney Tony Moss and the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting the case, declined comment.

10-year-old slain at nail salon

Even as Monday’s opening statements near, it was a murder Ragan is accused of committing three weeks after Perez was killed that galvanized a community and had detectives scrambling.

Around 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 22, 2013, a Friday, Ragan and another man stormed into the Hong Kong Nails Salon at 14832 NW Seventh Ave., aimed their handguns at workers and customers and demanded money and valuables, witnesses told police. The men collected $300 in cash and property.

But Ragan wasn’t done, police said.

Before leaving, he turned back and fired at least two shots inside the salon, witnesses told police. One bullet struck a man named Hai Nam Vu in the shoulder. He survived. But the other bullet took the life of Vu’s fifth-grade son, Aaron Vu, piercing the femoral artery in his thigh. The Vu family owned the nail salon.

Witnesses said Ragan and the other man ran out of the store and jumped into a Dodge 1500 pickup truck and sped off. Police found Ragan a month later at his sister’s Miami home. Witnesses identified him through photographs, police said.

Not long after Ragan’s violent crime spree, then-North Miami Police Maj. Neal Cuevas called him ruthless, “with no regard for human life.” Besides the Perez and Vu murders, Ragan was also accused of a string of store robberies and attempted murders.

Now retired, Cuevas said he stands by his comments.

The blatant shootings outraged the community Memorials were held for the murdered Vietnamese boy. Fliers were posted. Hundreds of people attended Aaron’s memorial service at St. Mark’s Roman Catholic Church in Southwest Ranches. His dad showed up in a wheelchair.

After the service, the young boy who loved to play the recorder was buried in Hollywood. Friends said Aaron liked to dance and entertain and was just a general joy to be around.

Police said when Ragan was captured, he put up a fight. When the Vu family was told the man accused of murdering Aaron was wanted for another murder, one family member asked, “How many families has he hurt?”

More than a decade after the shootings, the Vu’s family business in a strip mall on the west side of Northwest Seventh Avenue is now a tuxedo rental shop.

For Vu’s death, Ragan is facing felony first-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder and a host of robbery and aggravated assault charges. The state is expected to seek the death penalty, though no trial date has been set yet.

Suspected shooter’s complicated past

Ragan began a life of crime that escalated in violence long before he was accused of the month-long murderous crime spree just shy of his 19th birthday, court records show.

By the end of November 2013 — when police say Ragan took two lives and attempted to take two others — his father was already serving life in prison on a murder charge and his mother was behind bars for ripping off the federal government.

State records of Ragan’s lengthy criminal history show his interactions with law enforcement began even before he was a teen. Many of the charges were dropped.

He was charged with grand theft for trying to steal more than $100,000 in property four days shy of his 13th birthday, Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office records show. A month later, he was arrested by Miami-Dade Schools Police for simple assault and disorderly conduct. What followed were separate strong-armed robbery and car-jacking charges by Miramar Police and a charge of carrying a gun on school property in Miami Gardens.

Moss, the defense attorney, also served briefly as Anthawn Ragan Sr.’s attorney, before the elder Ragan chose to represent himself. It backfired.

Ragan’s dad was an aspiring boxer who had his career cut short when a friend shot him in the arm after an argument. Payback, police said, cost Ragan Sr. his freedom. He was convicted of shooting and killing the man as he came out of a Liberty City store. At the same time, Ragan’s mother was serving a stint in prison for Social Security fraud.

Month-long crime spree leads to two deaths

The murderous crime spree that would lead to Ragan’s capture began on the first day of November 2013, the day police said Ragan murdered Perez at the Motel Seven. His cohort, a man named Terry Nealy, testified on the state’s behalf during an unrelated trial that Ragan fired first at Perez.

Nealy admitted to standing over Perez as he lay on the ground and shooting him again. Nealy identified Ragan in surveillance video obtained by the state.

Nealy would later work out a plea deal with the state and agree to be deposed under oath, according to his attorney at the time. Ragan’s cohort received a 20-year sentence and probation in the Perez case. It’s not clear if he will testify next week.

Police said when they got to the motel where Perez was killed, they began chasing a Ford Crown Victoria that had taken off from the parking lot. As an officer caught up to it, the driver said he was rushing Perez to the hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

A witness told police he watched as the two men who shot Perez scurried up the stairs and one of them called out Perez’s name.

Perez’s girlfriend told police that two weeks before the shooting, she got a phone call from her boyfriend who was almost crying. She said he told her he had gotten into some type of trouble. Though she wasn’t sure, she told police she assumed it had something to do with his drug supplier.

Three weeks after the Perez murder — on Nov. 22 — came the murder of 10-year-old Aaron Vu and the attempted murder of his father in the nail salon. In between the two murders, police say Ragan held up a Liberty City convenience store, a North Miami hamburger joint and a Northwest Miami-Dade dollar store.

Convicted in cyclist’s shooting

Ragan’s only conviction for a shooting came almost six years later — thanks to modern technology and a bit of luck — in a separate case that had gone cold.

On Nov. 7, 2013, in the midst of Ragan’s alleged crime spree, Kevin Burke was shot as he rode his bike home from a friend’s house at 2 a.m. During trial testimony, Burke said a car pulled up and a man asked him to hand over money. When Burke refused and sped up, he was shot. Burke was injured and survived after a month in the hospital.

Six years later, forensics linked the gun in the Burke shooting to the same one used in the shootings of Aaron, his father and Perez. In 2019, Ragan was convicted of the attempted murder of Burke with a deadly weapon. An appeal to the 3rd District Court failed.

Though investigators haven’t shared their perceived motive in the Perez murder, police believe the other shootings that Ragan is accused of were all botched robberies.

“He’s a cold-blooded killer,” said Cuevas, the retired North Miami cop. “Plain and simple.”

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