SANFORD, Florida – A Seminole County jury has convicted two teenagers of first-degree felony murder in the 2024 shooting of a man who drove to Sanford to sell them a pair of used headphones.
Jurors found 19-year-old William O. Smith and a 17-year-old co-defendant guilty on November 6 of first-degree felony murder and attempted robbery with a firearm. The verdict came after a five-day trial, according to the State Attorney’s Office.
The victim was 22-year-old Brandon Leo. He had listed a pair of Beats wireless headphones on the OfferUp online marketplace in July 2024. Prosecutors said he believed he was driving to a meetup to hand them over.
Leo made the trip from Orlando and arrived at what turned out to be a vacant home. Smith and the other defendant moved in to rob him at gunpoint, prosecutors said. They fired shots as Leo tried to back his Toyota pickup truck away.
The truck crashed into a nearby retention pond. Investigators found Leo dead there from his wounds. Sanford Police recovered seven shell casings and the headphones outside the vacant house.
Video and phone records at trial
Assistant State Attorneys Richard Babcock, Jacob Polk and Cody Vincitore tried the case. They showed jurors neighborhood security video that captured the shooting.
They also presented information from Leo’s cell phone and online accounts and from the defendants’ phones and accounts. Prosecutors said that evidence connected Smith and the other defendant to the crime.
Smith was 17 at the time of the shooting, and the other defendant was 15. The State Attorney’s Office charged both as adults because of the severity of the crime. This story does not name the 17-year-old defendant because of his age.
Sentencing set for November 13
Both defendants now face life in prison. Because they were younger than 18 when the crime happened, each could receive a review of the sentence after 25 years.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for November 13.