GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Three men have been convicted in the 2017 shooting death of 23-year-old Hawthorne resident Christin Cassels, bringing a yearslong Alachua County investigation that eventually relied on newly developed cellphone and geofencing data to a jury verdict.
Following a weeklong trial, 38-year-old Nikenson Perin was found guilty of first-degree murder and trespassing. He was sentenced to life in prison.
30-year-old Blake Carrington Jackson and 45-year-old Keneth Altidor were each convicted of second-degree murder. Both are awaiting sentencing.
Cassels was shot and killed in Hawthorne in 2017. The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office investigation stretched more than seven years as detectives worked to identify those responsible.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, investigators spent hundreds of hours on the case before advances in the analysis of cellphone and geofencing data helped detectives identify Perin, Jackson and Altidor as suspects.
The investigation resulted in the arrests of Jackson and Altidor in South Florida in July 2024 with assistance from the Broward Sheriff’s Office.
Altidor was arrested July 15 in Fort Lauderdale. Jackson was taken into custody the following day in Hallandale Beach. Both were initially held in Broward County while awaiting extradition to Alachua County.
Perin was already serving a federal prison sentence in Seattle when he was charged in Cassels’ killing. He was later extradited to Alachua County to face prosecution.
Cassels’ family and friends joined Alachua County sheriff’s detectives in the courtroom as the jury returned guilty verdicts against all three defendants.
Alachua County Sheriff Chad Scott credited detectives Jeremy York and Chris Weitzel with continuing to pursue the case years after Cassels’ death.
“A parent should never have to face the horror of burying their child,” Scott said, adding that he hoped the verdict would provide Cassels’ family with “a small amount of peace.”