Teenager arrested after missing man, 26, is found murdered

Five days after his sister reported him missing, Frederson Philippe’s body was found Nov. 9 shot in the head and concealed in bushes near a suburban Lake Worth apartment complex, deputies said.

A 19-year-old who was arrested Tuesday and charged with the robbery and homicide of Philippe, 26, told investigators he set up the Riviera Beach man for a rip-off but did not intend for him to be killed, according to an arrest report from the Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office.

The report does not say what led investigators to Reginald Owens. It said Owens admitted to helping remove Philippe’s bloodied body from the backseat of his gold Volkswagen Jetta and hide it in the bushes. But it was two other suspects who did the killing, Owens told investigators.

“He was a good person, I didn’t think they were going to shoot him,” Owens told detectives. “I thought they were just going to rob him.”

Philippe’s sister, Wilkinscia Jean-Philippe, 31, contacted the sheriff’s office on Nov. 4 and told them she had last seen her brother two days earlier and his cellphone was going straight to voicemail.

On Nov. 2, the last evening that his sister saw him, Philippe was in the market to buy $160 worth of marijuana, Owens said. So, he hooked up Philippe with two people at the Worthington Apartments, 6282 Pinestead Drive in suburban Lake Worth, according to the report.

A short while later, those two people called Owens and said they had robbed and shot Philippe. Owens went to the apartment complex and helped drag Philippe’s body from his car to the bushes and cover it with a black sheet, leaves and car floor mats, the report said.

Employees at the Worthington Apartments, east of South Military Trail and south of Lantana Road, discovered Philippe’s decomposing body in the bushes last Friday morning. A spent .40-caliber bullet casing was on the ground nearby.

Owens said he and the other two suspects tried to sink Philippe’s Jetta in a lake in Belle Glade but they were interrupted and unsuccessful, the sheriff’s office report said.

Owens is being without bond in the Beach County Jail. held Palm