MARION COUNTY, Fla. — Prosecutors played the videotaped confessions of a brother and sister in a Marion County courtroom on Monday. The siblings are charged with the killing of a 15-year-old boy.
Detectives said Kyle Hooper and Amber Wright were part of a five-person murder plot.
In court, 17-year-old Hooper has kept his comments to himself, but earlier, shortly after the killing of his former friend, Seath Jackson, he told sheriff's detectives a lot about the case.
During a recorded interview with detectives, Hooper recalled the night of April 17, 2011, when prosecutors said he and his sister, along with three others, carried out their plot to kill Jackson in a Summerfield home.
Detectives said the scheme was hatched after the romantic relationship between Wright and Jackson went sour.
"She disliked him because he had hit her. She said, 'He almost gave me an STD and that he cheated on me and he turned my friends against me,'" said Detective Rhonda Stroup of the Marion County Sheriff's Office.
Prosecutors said Wright lured Jackson to the house, where her brother attacked him, and Wright's new boyfriend, Michael Bargo, pulled out a gun and opened fire.
During Wright's interrogation, she told detectives she was in the back bedroom when Jackson was killed.
"We just heard a gunshot, a gunshot, a gunshot. And after, there were like five or six doing it, it got quiet. And I hear Kyle going, 'What did you just do?'" Wright said in the interview.
Prosecutors said Jackson's body was thrown into a fire pit and burned. The remains were then stuffed into 5-gallon paint buckets and dumped into a flooded rock quarry.
Hooper told detectives that everybody was in on the original plan.
"You and Amber and Mike were talking about killing Seath," a detective asked.
"Everybody agreed," Hooper replied.
The siblings face life in prison if they are convicted.
WFTV
