MANATEE — Across the street from where someone killed Julius Brown in his sleep Thursday morning, deputies arrested a possible suspect in the slaying.
Manatee County Sheriff’s Office detectives arrested Antwon Stuckey, 20, on an armed robbery warrant in a house on 21st Street East in Memphis, across the street from the Highland Apartments, where Brown was shot.
An armed man wearing a ski mask burst into Brown’s grandmother’s apartment just after 7 a.m., went into a bedroom and shot Brown in his sleep, according to Brown’s cousin, a 15-year-old boy who was in the apartment at the time of the shooting.
“There was nothing I could do because he said he would shoot me, too,” the boy told the Bradenton Herald. “He just ran past me, fired and ran back out.”
As hundreds of people gathered around the apartment complex, many weeping, some trying to comfort the boy, detectives heard Stuckey’s name as a possible suspect, sheriff’s spokesman Dave Bristow said.
Hours later, detectives learned Stuckey was in a house just across the street from the apartment complex. A woman who owns the home allowed detectives in and they found Stuckey, Sheriff Brad Steube said.
Detectives took Stuckey into custody on the armed robbery warrant, but he has not been charged with Brown’s killing, Bristow said.
“We have received information about him with regard to the shooting that we are looking into,” he said.
Authorities do not believe Brown’s death, the 27th homicide investigated in Manatee County this year, to be random.
“We think the person who did this had it planned and deliberately went in and did it,” Steube said. “We don’t have a motive right now, but something was said about money when he came in the apartment.”
Stuckey is a three-time convicted felon dating back to 2006 when he first escaped from a juvenile detention center. A year later, he was sentenced to 364 days in jail on cocaine and marijuana charges after running from a traffic stop. In 2007, while wanted on a sale of cocaine warrant, police reports say Stuckey accidently shot himself and was taken to the hospital with a gunshot wound. Stuckey initially lied to police about the shooting, saying a gang member shot him. He then changed his story, saying he shot himself. He also lied about his identity as officers questioned him about the shooting.
While in jail on the cocaine warrant, police eventually discovered him to be the man from the hospital and arrested him on a charge of possession of a firearm as a convicted felon.
That charge was later dropped because the gun was never found, Stuckey gave conflicting stories and the bullet in his body had no fingerprints on it, according to Assistant State Attorney Angel Colonneso.
“Without a firearm or evidence that the defendant was in possession of a firearm, the state could not proceed with the charge,” Colonneso wrote in an e-mail.
But the cocaine charge stuck, and a judge sentenced Stuckey to two years in prison.
He got out of prison in June, but quickly was wanted on the robbery charge. He is accused of robbing a man at gunpoint July 13 by pointing the weapon in the victim’s face, and putting him in a choke hold after the victim went to the ground.
Brown, a former athlete at Palmetto High School, also had a recent run-in with the law. Authorities arrested him July 31 after a chase with Florida Highway Patrol troopers on Interstate 75 through Charlotte and Sarasota counties. He was arrested on charges of fleeing to elude, reckless driving, leaving the scene of a crash and resisting arrest.
Brown was released from the Sarasota County jail on Aug. 2, after posting a $11,500 bond. Jail records show his occupation as a grave digger.
Court records show he was slated to be arraigned on the criminal traffic charges at 9 a.m. today.
Outrage in the neighborhood bubbled over as Brown’s devastated family prayed in a nearby church.
“It was a coward who did this, to shoot a man in his sleep,” said Betty Rose. “This violence needs to stop now.”
Brown’s aunt, Sonia Love, agreed, saying with tears in her eyes that her nephew loved his family with a passion.
“He was just a nice person,” she said.
Anyone with information on Brown’s slaying can call Crime Stoppers at (866) 634-TIPS or the sheriff’s office at (941) 747-3011, ext. 2260.
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