Key West jury finds one of the ‘tree house murder’ suspects guilty

On Nov. 17, 2017, a black pickup truck pulled up to what is literally a tree house on Laurel Avenue in Stock Island. Two masked men got out of the truck and walked up the stairs to a makeshift apartment perched on top of the tree house.

The men, who Monroe County sheriff’s detectives say are Rory “Detroit” Wilson and Franklin Tyrone Tucker, threatened the woman who lived there with a knife — eventually stabbing her in the throat. The woman, Paula Belmonte, screamed in the process of the attack, prompting her neighbor, 59-year-old Matthew Bonnett to run up the stairs to try to help her.

However, before he could reach the apartment, detectives say the two men attacked Bonnett, fatally stabbing him five times before running away. Belmonte, 58, survived the attack, but was left with a large cut on her neck and right hand.

Detectives and prosecutors say the whole situation, now known locally as the “tree house murder,” was over a crack cocaine deal gone wrong. A police informant told detectives that another woman sent the men to Belmonte’s home to rob her as payback for ripping her off for crack and cash weeks earlier, according to court documents.

Wilson, one of the three men arrested in the case, on Friday was found guilty by 12 jurors of first-degree murder and robbery with a deadly weapon while masked. He faces life in prison. The jury took about two and a half hours to deliberate.

“I was pleased that the jury held him accountable for his behavior,” Assistant State Attorney Joseph Mansfield told the Miami Herald. Mansfield prosecuted the case with Assistant State Attorney Katheline Cortes.

Wilson’s attorney, Ana Gomez-Mallada, told the Herald she’s going to file an appeal of the conviction before her client is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 21.

Tucker, who maintains his innocence, lives in Portland, Oregon, with CrossFit co-founder Lauren Jenai, who bonded him out of county jail in 2019. Tucker and Jenai were childhood friends in Philadelphia, and reconnected after Jenai heard about his arrest. They’ve since married.

Tucker’s trial is pending and likely won’t happen before the spring, Mansfield said.

The man who police say was the getaway driver that night, John Travis Johnson, 45, of Marathon, made a deal with prosecutors in May, agreeing to plead guilty to armed robbery and aggravated battery. Part of the deal was testifying against Wilson and Tucker.