Phone records put Andre Bryant at scene of shootout that left him and two others dead

Detectives have confirmed that Andre Bryant was at a shootout at a Bayshore Gardens home in August that left three men dead, including himself.

In the early morning hours of Aug. 5, a 25-year-old woman was accosted by four masked men as she came home in the 1100 block of Harvard Avenue in Bayshore Gardens and forced into one of the bedrooms, according to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.

Shortly after, Rodney Williams, 23, and possibly one other person, came home and were confronted by the four suspects.

The woman could hear yelling, she told detectives, and a shootout ensued. She managed to run away from the home, and when deputies responded to a 911 call from neighbors, they found Williams and Keith Lamar Jones, 28, dead.

Jones had a mask over his head. Less than four hours later, Sarasota police were called to the intersection of Bahia Vista Street and Yale Avenue after a 911 caller reported seeing a man sleeping or passed out under a tree.

However, police officers instead found Andre Bryant, 28, dead from gunshot wounds with a mask over his head.

Detectives with the Manatee Homicide Investigative Unit say they believe that Bryant had been one of the four suspects at the Bayshore Gardens shootout.

“We can now confirm he was at the scene because of cell phone records,” sheriff’s office spokesman Dave Bristow said on Monday. “We knew he was there, but we needed to confirm.”

Meanwhile, two suspects remain at large, but detectives have identified two possible suspects, according to Bristow. The sheriff’s office is not yet disclosing the names of the two potential suspects, however.

“We are waiting on a lot of test results, lot of physical evidence,” Bristow said.

While the case is now being investigated as a triple-homicide, at least one of the fatal shootings could be ruled self-defense.

“A lot of that will come to light” once investigators are able to confirm the identity of the other two suspects, Bristow said.

Video surveillance footage from neighboring homes was useful in confirming that there had been four suspects because the witness had been unsure if it was three or four. All four men were seen wearing masks, and it was still dark, making positive identification with the video impossible.

Linking Bryant to the shootout makes for the 10th death being investigated as or ruled as a homicide for the month of August in Manatee County.

Bryant was released from prison in 2015 after having his conviction set aside for the armed robbery of the wife of a Manatee County sheriff’s deputy at a Bradenton pharmacy in 2006. New evidence in the case had come to light after years of Bryant maintaining his innocence, and the Innocence Project of Florida took on his case.

State Attorney Ed Brodsky set aside Bryant’s conviction, saying at the time that while the evidence did not prove his innocence it did raise some reasonable doubt.

This story was originally published October 23, 2017 at 4:38 PM with the headline "Phone records put Andre Bryant at scene of shootout that left him and two others dead."