COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

A 16-year old boy has been arrested after two British men – one from Warwick- were shot dead on holiday in Florida.



Police say they found 25-year old James Cooper (left of picture) from Hampton Lucy, and his friend James Kouzaris from Northamptonshire, on the south-western coast of Florida in the early hours of Saturday morning.

They had been called out to a street in the north of the city at around 3am.

Officers found one of them lying outside a housing block covered in blood. The other was discovered moments later on the other side of the road.

Both were pronounced dead at the scene from gunshot wounds, a Sarasota Police spokesman said.

A 16-year-old boy has been arrested and charged with two counts of murder.

James Cooper and James Kouzaris had been staying on the affluent island city of Longboat Key, about 12 miles from the down-market area where they were killed.

They had been due to spend three weeks in Sarasota.

Captain Paul Sutton, of Sarasota police believes they did not know the suspect and says they were found in an area not usually visited by tourists:

“We are still investigating why they would have been in this area,” Capt Sutton said.

“It is very unusual to find tourists or visitors in this area. It is a residential neighbourhood with no shops and no bars. We do not know what brought them here at 3am.”

Paying tribute to Warwick’s James Cooper, Senior Lecturer from the University of Sheffield’s Management school Dr Jon Burchell, said:

“James Cooper was a student in the Management School and was one of my personal tutees.

“During his time in Sheffield, James was an enthusiastic and hard working student, and was popular among his peers. He had a good sense of humour and a range of plans for what he wanted to do after graduation. I am immensely shocked and saddened by the news and send our deepest condolences to his family.”

Shawn Tyson guilty of murdering two Britons in Florida



An American teenager has been jailed for life after being found guilty of the first degree murder of two British tourists in Florida.

James Cooper, 25, from Warwickshire, and James Kouzaris, 24, from Northampton, were shot in Sarasota.

The pair, who met at Sheffield University, were killed after drunkenly wandering into the Newtown area in the early hours of 16 April 2011.

The court heard Shawn Tyson, 17, killed them after trying to rob them.

It also emerged that hours before the murders, Tyson had been arrested - and then released - after another shooting incident.

Tyson, who was tried as an adult despite being 16 at the time of the shooting.

'Shattered soul'

Before sentence was passed, two of the pair's friends read out impact statements to the court.

Joe Hallet told Tyson they were "two people who if you had given them a chance would have given you the time of day".

Paul Davies described them as "good men, the most amazing men you ever met."

The families of Mr Cooper and Mr Kouzaris were not in court but said in a statement they were satisfied with the verdict.

They added: "It is a fact that we were given a life sentence when our sons were so brutally and needlessly taken from us.

"Ours is a life sentence, with no chance of parole from a broken heart, and a shattered soul."

The families also criticised the Sarasota court system that freed Tyson after a judge warned the teenager was a danger to the public following the earlier shooting, in which no one was hurt.

In the statement, the families said: "The evil of the killer is one thing, but the fact is, he would not have been on the streets had instructions to keep him incarcerated been passed from one judge to another."

When the mistake came to light the Mayor of Sarasota, Kelly Kirschener, vowed the city's prosecutors would never let anything similar happen again.

During the trial jurors heard how Mr Kouzaris and Mr Cooper had been out drinking in downtown Sarasota before getting lost and wandering into the Newtown area in the early hours.

The prosecution said they were confronted by Tyson who tried to rob them and then shot them when he realised they had very little money.

The court heard Tyson had boasted to his friend Latrece Washington, who testified against him, that one of the men had begged for his life but he shot him anyway.

The teenager was seen by neighbours running to his house and climbing in the window just after the gunshots.

He also told another friend, Marvin Gaines, he had killed the men.

Mr Gaines said Tyson gave him seven 0.22 calibre shell casings to bury in his backyard, as well as a gun.

Mr Gaines later gave the gun to friend Jermaine Bane, who sold it for 50 dollars.

After he was threatened with a charge of accessory to murder, Mr Gaines led police to where the casings were buried. The murder weapon has never been found.