The Manatee County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday that after 16 years of investigation, detectives have made an arrest for the murder of a local man.
The crime happened on June 25, 2006, when Guadalupe Vela was involved in an argument with a rival street gang member, Pedro "Pedico" Garcia. After initially going their separate ways, the two ran into each other again at the house of a relative of Vela.
That's when detectives said gunshots ran out as Vela was trying to leave the area. Detectives said Vela was found dead in the backyard of the residence. Bullet casings were found at the scene, but a potential witness refused to cooperate.
Sheriff's detectives said in October 2006 that deputies stopped Garcia for a traffic problem. Deputies said they found a 9mm pistol in Garcia's car and he was arrested for possession of a firearm by a felon.
Investigators said ballistics testing linked the gun found in Garcia's possession to the crime scene, but the rounds that hit Vela were determined to be from another gun.
Detectives said over the subsequent years, they spoke to witnesses who said Garcia made statements about killing Vela. Then in the summer of 2022, detectives learned that Garcia told another inmate at the Manatee County Jail he killed Vela and provided "very specific details of that night and the crime scene.
According to Manatee County Sheriff's Office detectives, another prisoner also said they had witnessed Garcia shoot Vela.
More than 16 years after the shooting death of Vela, homicide detectives with the Manatee Sheriff's Office arrested Garcia on the 800 block of 30th Avenue West in Bradenton. He was out on bond for an unrelated homicide in 2014.
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