NORTH MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – Detectives arrested a suspect Tuesday who they said shot and killed a 67-year-old man while he was sitting in his car outside of his home in North Miami Beach in January.
According to an arrest report from the Miami Beach Police Department, John Vitta, 53, of North Miami Beach, is facing one count of second-degree murder with a weapon.
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Authorities said Eric Ferrer, 67, had been sitting inside his car in the driveway of his home just after midnight on Jan 8. in the 18000 block of Northeast 21st Court, when he was shot in his head.
According to the report, Ferrer was sitting on the driver’s side of his gray Toyota Camry when his family found him with a gunshot wound to the head and slouched over the steering wheel of the vehicle.
Authorities said Ferrer was transported to HCA Aventura Hospital, where he was declared brain dead following the shooting. Police said he was later removed from life support and died on Jan 9.
The Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office performed an autopsy and determined that the cause of death was from a gunshot wound to the head, and was ruled a homicide, investigators said.
The report said that Ferrer’s wife and her son were inside their home at the time of the shooting and heard two loud bangs coming from outside.
Ferrer’s son told police that he went to the front door and saw a white-colored older-model pickup truck reversing from the driveway of his home moments after the shooting, investigators said.
Authorities said Ferrer’s son went outside and looked inside his father’s Gray Toyota Camry and found Ferrer bleeding from his head and slouched over from the inside of his vehicle.
Police said after reviewing video surveillance from a home in the area, they saw a man, later identified as John Vitta, in a white pickup truck driving past the victim’s home, reversing into his driveway, and then shutting the lights off from inside the truck.
One witness told police he knew a person who drove a “beat up work truck” and that Ferrer did a side job consisting of a kitchen repair for an elderly couple and their son, John Vitta, who drives the pickup truck, the report stated.
After searching through Ferrer’s phone for evidence, police said they were able to find that Ferrer had Vitta’s mother’s cellphone number saved.
After contacting Google to receive a search warrant to investigate Vitta’s vehicle movements on the night Ferrer was murdered, police said moments after Vitta came home from a strip mall, he then got in his pickup truck and drove to Ferrer’s home around midnight.
Police said they reviewed additional surveillance that showed a man shooting Ferrer two times just after midnight.
According to the report, the man was seen leaving the victim in the vehicle suffering from a gunshot wound to the head.
Police said Vitta and his mother were stopped by police officers on Tuesday afternoon in Miami Gardens and his mother confirmed that the only people that live at her home are her and her son, John Vitta.
Post Miranda, John Vitta confirmed that he was the only person who used a cellphone at his home and was the only person who drove the 2007 Ford Pickup Truck.
As of Wednesday, Vitta was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center where he is being held without bond.