911 calls show shooting info spread quickly
Neighbors sound wary on Feb. night of triple killing at Jupiter house.
JUPITER — The first caller said she didn’t want to let the frantic man inside her Jupiter home. He said there had been a shooting, but she didn’t know him and she had a baby inside the house, she told the 911 dispatcher.
“He was in shock. He could barely talk,” the woman said.
The second caller wanted to report a neighbor “shooting a gun into the sky” on the night
of the Super Bowl. What he, and police, didn’t know at the time was that there were three bodies filled with bullets around a fire pit in the backyard of the house on Mohawk Street.
“We already got a call about
that, and we have officers on the way,” the dispatcher assured the man.
The third caller said her neighbor asked her to call for an ambulance. Someone was shot. The dispatcher asked if she knew the address of the shooting.
“I’m not trying to go outside and get myself wrapped up in this,” she said.
The Jupiter Police Department has released several 911 dispatches from residents and authorities on the night of the triple homicide on Feb. 5, 2017. The shootings killed Kelli J. Doherty, 20; Sean P. Henry, 25; and Brandi El-Salhy, 24, who were at Charles Vorpagel’s rented home. Court documents released in October said drugs were at the center of the fatal shootings.
Christopher Vasata of Jupiter and Marcus Steward of suburban West Palm Beach both are charged with three counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder. The state has said it will seek the death penalty in their cases.
Vorpagel, who made it out of the shooting alive, faced federal charges for dozens of guns and drugs found throughout the home during the homicide investigation.
He pleaded guilty Nov. 29 to two federal weapons offenses in a deal that guarantees he will spend at least five years in prison.
Of those 911 dispatches, three of the calls came from neighbors, while four others came from contacts between the Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office and Jupiter police. The last call was from a man who was nearly hit by a car speeding away from the scene. The names of the 911 callers are redacted from the recordings.
The first caller said there were about 10 shots that she and her husband heard from their home. She told the dispatcher there had been plenty of traffic both coming and going from the house, but she didn’t know the residents because they were renters. Investigators
said Vorpagel was selling drugs from the residence.
The dispatcher asked if the neighbor told them anyone was shot. The caller said she didn’t know.
“By the look of the kid’s face, it seemed like somebody was,” the woman said.
As the woman speaks to the dispatcher, a sound in the background sounds like a car speeding off. The
dispatcher asks if any vehicles left the residence. The woman said she just heard one speed away.
When police arrived, they cleared the home and spoke with Vorpagel, who said Henry’s car was gone from the driveway. Henry’s Honda was later found on the side of southbound Interstate 95 near Northlake Boulevard. Inside the car was blood and a glove. Nearby were an AK-47, work gloves, a revolver and a hooded sweatshirt.
DNA found inside the car linked both Vasata and Steward to the fatal shootings, according to police.
Vorpagel told investigators at least three masked people came into his backyard where he, Doherty, Henry and El-Salhy were sitting and allegedly said, “Pay what you owe, (expletive) ... ” Police later determined the group had been shot with an AK-47 and a handgun.
A few streets south in the Paseos neighborhood, a Palm Beach County sheriff ’s deputy called dispatchers to say they had a man who appeared to be stabbed lying in the middle of the road in front of a BMW. The keys to the BMW were later found in Henry’s Honda. Inside the BMW were two cellphones belonging to Steward.
In a later call, authorities determined the man, later identified as Vasata, had been shot twice. “We’re working a shooting. Three victims, and it may be related, because we had a dark vehicle leaving the scene up on Mohawk Street,” a Jupiter police dispatcher told the Sheriff ’s Office dispatcher.
Another vehicle, believed to be Henry’s stolen Honda, sped away from the scene and through Paseos, dropping Vasata in front of the BMW, according to Sheriff ’s Office reports.
In the hospital, Vasata made several comments to officers, including that he killed three people.
“I’m looking at death row, a needle in my arm. I’m looking at least at (three) life sentences. I’m laying here and I haven’t even started my punishment,” court documents show.
It’s still unclear who shot Vasata.
Though the exact reason behind the shooting is unclear other than a connection to drugs, police say Vasata told a fellow inmate that the plan was only to rob the people that night but “his partner got trigger-happy and so they had to shoot everyone there.”