3rd man arrested in killing during alleged drug deal
A third man was arrested in the October killing of a 28-year-old man in what deputies say was a drug deal that the three suspects escalated into a homicide.
Carlos Guzman, 31, was arrested Thursday in Volusia County on a warrant for first-degree murder with a firearm in the Oct. 11 shooting death of Scott Hayward, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. Edwin Morges-Fernandez, 36, and Pedro Bernabe, 28, have already been arrested on the same charge in the case.
According to Morges-Fernandez’s arrest report, deputies linked the three men to Hayward’s killing through surveillance videos and cellphone records. Hayward was found shot multiple times in the driver’s seat of his vehicle just after midnight on Oct. 11 outside an apartment complex on Singing Creek Lane in the Oak Ridge area, the report said.
He died at the scene. Surveillance video showed the suspects’ vehicle — later linked to Guzman through noticeable similar hubcap damage and a specific license plate frame — blocked Hayward’s car into a parking space the night of the killing, the report said. The passenger of Guzman’s car exited the door “wearing a hooded jacket and black ski mask,” then banged on Hayward’s door with the butt of a handgun, the report said.
Hayward “appeared to refuse the suspect’s demands and attempted to ram his way out of the parking spot by driving forward and striking” the car blocking him in, the report said. But soon after, with the hooded suspect still pointing a firearm at him, Hayward rolled down his window and handed the man a small bag, the report said
“After obtaining the bag, and without any provocation or reason, the suspect takes one step from the window, points the firearm directly at the victim and fired 10 rounds through the open driver window, striking the victim multiple times,” the report said. The man then got back into the car and drove away.
The arrest report did not identify the alleged gunman in the killing.
Deputies say that Morges-Fernandez coordinated with Hayward a plan to meet up and buy cocaine from him but did not actually meet him, instead “coordinating efforts” with Bernabe to meet Hayward, the report said.
Cellphone records showed Morges-Fernandez texting with Hayward right before the killing, as well as calling and texting another number, which deputies linked to Bernabe, the report said.
Bernabe’s phone records showed the last person he contacted before the shooting, besides Morges-Fernandez, was a number that belonged to Guzman.
After Bernabe was first arrested in April, he made calls from jail to Guzman’s cousin and Morges-Fernandez’s girlfriend, trying to warn the two men to “get out of town and lay low” because law enforcement were aware of their involvement in the killing, the report said.