The murders of three Florida teenagers who were found shot and left for dead over the course of multiple days may be linked to “wannabe gangs,” the investigating sheriff said Tuesday.
The teens, who cops said were together before their deaths, were each shot and found in separate locations in Ocklawaha between Thursday night and Saturday afternoon.
Layla Silvernail, 16, was first found alive — with a bullet wound to the head — inside a dumpster on the side of a road Thursday night. She was rushed to a hospital where she was declared brain dead and taken off life support on Tuesday, Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods said.
The morning after Silvernail was found, police discovered a 17-year-old boy dead on the side of a different road a short distance away.
Then on Saturday afternoon, investigators found a third body belonging to a 16-year-old girl. The teen was inside Silvernail’s car which was partially submerged in a lake, Woods said.
The sheriff said the three were friends and that their murders are “an isolated incident” — not the work of a serial killer, as rumors swirled in the community.
Woods said detectives are investigating the possibility that the teens were shot and killed by members of so-called “hybrid gangs.”
“The detectives also have information that [the triple homicide] is possibly tied to what we classify as ‘hybrid gangs’,” he said at a press conference recorded by WCJB. “I’ll use a little more plain English for everybody — ‘wannabe gangs’ is what they are.”
Woods did not say if any of the victims were associated with the so-called hybrid gangs but added that the possibility is part of the investigation.
“Let’s be frank, anyone who associated with a gang at some point in their life, they’ve done something, whether they have been arrested or not,” he said. “So, when I tell you it is a hybrid gang, it is not a gang because it is all unicorns and everything else. It is a gang because they do illegal stuff.”
He said investigators have identified multiple suspects in the killings, but have not yet made any arrests.
“We are going to get them. [Detectives] are going to find them,” Woods said of the killers. “They are going to put the pieces of the puzzle together and … their asses are going to be right over there in that jail.”
The sheriff has not released the names of the two unidentified teenagers due to legal restrictions.
Meanwhile, Silvernail’s softball teammates are raising money to help her family cover funeral and medical expenses. The teen’s family has decided to donate her organs “so she can help others in the wake of this tragedy,” they wrote in a GoFundMe campaign.