When a Blackmailer Murders His Victims

see we don't have any nope no pencils or pads with us i'm just gonna i'm just gonna record this today's case features a man accused of murdering two people during a blackmail attempt gone wrong in july 2018 deputies arrived at the home of roosevelt and janet dixon and found the elderly couple had been shot dead there were no signs of forced entry and it was later discovered that the hard drive for the home security system was missing their attention soon became focused on the handyman federico gondola when questioning friends of the suspect investigators were told that federico had tried to get someone to help him remove the bodies it was also disclosed that federico was attempting to blackmail roosevelt by claiming that he had discovered child pornography on his computer when confronted roosevelt pulled a revolver which gondola took from him and then used to shoot them if there's anything that's that needs to be checked out maybe if i say something that you don't agree with we can always go back and rewind that and make sure um it just it saves from us having to um have paper and pen sometimes you can't follow what people are saying when you're too busy trying to write something down so before we start i'm just looking at your background so this isn't your first time that you've ever talked to the police correct no so you know how the system works um we have to read you your main miranda rights to that whole process okay okay do you understand miranda yes okay i'm going to read it anyway if you have any questions on it feel free to ask okay okay you have the right to remain silent do you understand yes anything you say may be used against you in court do you understand this you are entitled to talk to a lawyer before and during question do you understand yes if you cannot afford a lawyer and want one one will be provided before questioning without charge do you understand yes do you have any questions regarding the miranda rights no um you familiar with where you are right now no okay so you're you're in osceola county um sheriff's office this is our administration building okay this is where our offices are okay um today's sunday and i know you said it was it was early for you so it is 6 37 okay are you normally up at this time um it depends because my girlfriend's schedule oh yeah it's it's crazy she always says uh dialysis center so sometimes if she has to open we have to be up at two start getting ready get her up there yeah so damn you know it's mixed a lot of times so all right so you said that um you kind of had an idea right why we're here yeah the guy called me he's asking me a lot of questions so i'll say so who's the guy who called you said i called you it was a detective ortiz what kind of statement and what was your conversation with him just asking me a couple of questions about a guy i know that provided service for and that was it what did he ask you um if i was in florida um [Music] if i knew if he had um hatred towards somebody or something like that or if he had any up outgoing issues and who was in charge of the home and things like that but let's go back a little bit then tell me a little bit about yourself okay as far as where are you from originally not in panama from panama yeah where'd you grow up um different places my father was military i lived in el paso texas on the military base um georgia new york jersey oh where what from new york queens what part um we was all right so we stayed in it was west berlin and then we stayed in somerdale and you said queens yeah queen's from new york okay how long you been in florida um we i got they got here before me i got here maybe 2015. oh so you you've only been out here three years yeah okay so what do you do for a living all right right now we're trying to get this home appliance service going me and my father and that's what we do right now just so it's just not um just labor no nothing no you don't like um store to look for i like a particular thing a particular field specialized um well computers electronics after reading his rights gondola is asked several easy background questions to put him at ease before getting to information surrounding the case gondola is open and relaxed but that could change when he feels pressured [Music] and home appliances um we advertise hvac but i don't do hvac so it's just who the late director my father oh okay probably somebody's doing it yeah yeah yeah so your father's here as well yes in haiti city where i really stay at like my home also you've lived in a city but you've been staying with your girlfriend yeah um so she gets her license situation things yeah okay so no no job really work for yourselves independence yeah um was taking calls for different companies like barrister you know the military company know that but nothing as far as just like i'm with them independently no how do you advertise online flyers if i can cards word of mouth is actually the the biggest thing really yeah so going back to this um to this conversation with the detective mm-hmm who was this guy he was asking you about mr roosevelt mr roosevelt yeah who's who's he got a service for him what kind of service i mean um well with him it was it was always something different you know um his computer is messed up or his wife's laptop is you know something or whatever really out to his microwave you know whatever how did you um how'd you end up meeting him could have been word of mouth this was a while ago i was when i originally first got out here i was talking to so much people trying to get you know things off the ground it would either have to be a flyer or worth them up so how long have you been working for off and on um i probably met him when i first came down here too so i i really don't know like exactly how many times i've worked for him but it's been off and on spread out throughout the years so the last three years you've kind of been um going over there and went through the work and the microwave and um i helped him out with uh well charles trying to help him out with um the cvs thing but i told him that you know he's trying to get pictures produced and he's not able to because they look they look professionally took and they said and you need uh something from the photographer themselves in order to be able to print those photos so he paid you for all these things correct yeah how'd he pay you cash always asked yeah ten dollars guys 25 35 bucks for the call so nothing huge um oh no no no no major repairs or anything like that no did you ever meet his wife yeah and she same thing she would have you do things i only looked at her laptop and him he more than like you know he mostly wanted whatever it may have been how was he as a guy though man um as far as paying you and stuff like that was he good or oh yeah he was fine okay no issues with him paying you oh no where's the last time you saw him um i had an appointment with him man if you can speak to ortiz because i don't have my phone on me but if you speak to him he knows the exact dates i gave him the dates because i was actually able to look at my message stream at the time uh i'm gonna say it was the 19th version okay and i also spoke to him on the first or second of july i was letting them know that i'm not going to be available you know the fourth coming up and i usually do that with anybody that you know calls me for service so it was a general um reach out to him just to let him know yes i'm pretty sure i even left a voicemail for him okay yeah and that's and you did it using your cell phone yes okay so you heard what happened to him right no no everybody keeps telling me about the incident what would they tell you ortiz said there was an incident have i heard something i caught that he said have you heard of an incident in the last few weeks and i said no and i said is everything okay you know he said he started telling me that he passed away no he did he passed away most people don't refer to murder as an incident and they usually say murdered rather than passed away because the second option usually implies natural causes gondola is quoting someone else but if he continues to use these terms it might indicate that he is distancing himself to minimize his connection yeah i i got that but the question didn't seem kind of weird though because he asked me if if i knew of anybody he may have had a problem that's the general question that that we asked every single person that we talk to whoever associated with someone we always ask that because obviously we don't know that person no but they might that person we're asking may know of something you know so it's just a general question that we ask okay so because i wasn't there um what was your answer i told him no no yeah i told him no okay because he was kind of asking me questions that i really couldn't help but hey so just i'm sorry let me shift this back because um i was asking you um that's your girlfriend's house out there right but i saw a bunch of cars in that driveway uh three vehicles whose vehicles are those all right so her brother is currently staying with her his wife and his kids he has a minivan and a white ford explorer the black vehicle the camry and the red ford explorer is my girlfriend's her black vehicle it's not really usable so she's using the red vehicle and that's all the vehicles there oh and the other vehicle was my sister she's there babysitting because her brother and her and his brother's wife are voting or you know whatever they do on the boat okay so none of those vehicles there were yours no have you ever used any of those vehicles um just to take my girlfriend to work in that which one is that a red one which i believe was over there yes right yeah okay so do you order vehicle no so you say that black one is not running right now and no it's nice on like three cylinders no ac shut off yeah it's not a usable vehicle so how are you getting on getting wrong before oh well i was using a van that's my father's van really but we use that van for you know service calls or whoever is going to go out and we mix between that van my sister has her car i mean my mother has her car so me my dad was just using that until something happened to the transmission so so do me a favor um let's let's go back a little bit okay you said that recently you started staying with your girlfriend yeah so what does that mean recent what's that all right so technically we're supposed to be like living together but you know it's we're like together for like four months you know it's kind of soon so i still have stuff at you know my my parents home right now and um it's it's a tricky situation there you ain't ready to commit to stealing it i mean i am but you just never know you know it's how we're gonna go you know so tell me a little bit about yourself man okay what do you want to do your background grew up in new york went to school in new york right yeah what'd you do after that um well from beginning today i gotta tell you everything but i like it well after school i pretty much was in a ged program [Music] um i end up getting arrested you know and for uh bank robbery up there in new york or somewhere else new york um i did my time came home i started working for a company named warsaw in brooklyn then i moved to jersey um i got married in jersey um had two kids in jersey uh what else it's just worked out there are your kids still in jersey or they know him they're in philadelphia well they're from dublin yeah oh do they know eleven and nine gondola doesn't bother to lie or hide his past criminal history there is no point since he is well aware that the police already know about his record he handled that part in the best way possible by stating the bare facts and only giving details when asked a direct question you get to see him often or no as me and me and the mother have issues from time to time last time i seen them was last year i'm supposed to get them every year during the summer [Music] this time it's a bit of an issue and trying to still work that out okay i've been there yes pain in the butt so interesting background depends on what's interesting you know no no [ __ ] from you know tom is interested in me um so why are we here i don't know but i don't like knowing no you still don't know no no i'm really interested in your relationship with mr uh mr roosevelt okay i think there was a little more to your relationship with him than what you tell him what do you mean it was just um service calls and [Music] that was it really that was it yeah i mean he likes to call everybody his friend you know friend and friend but anytime we ever spoke you know it was mainly about this service as well you need to tell me that in the three years you've been working you know what you do you can't recall how many times you went to his house that's a rough question um i really can't it was that many it had to happen because i really can't like i said when people call i drop by you know um if i can make it i'll make it if i can i'll be scheduled um we he usually texts me everything so i probably have a stream of you know oh no but i did switch phones but how long have you got this one you got now the iphone um it's an older iphone i just used it uh you know you switch phones yeah i had a htc before um but the iphone i welcome htc i dropped it it wasn't responded on the screen so i had to swap it what was this i really don't remember that i'm trying to remember a year ago six months ago a few months back yeah but two two months back a few uh i would say more than two i've been using it more than two months definitely okay okay but you can tell me while we're here yeah i'm about to um you should probably already have a clue because let me tell you this all right you're 35 and i mean you're kind of savvy pretty intelligent you know computers and stuff like that technology in general right so you understand nowadays where we are with technology right yes and just in general but put that in the police aspect of it law enforcement far technology has come yes okay so let me i guess say to you that technology has brought you right here to this chair really yeah how's that well i never met you i didn't know who the hell you were until recently so here we have an individual who we're investigating whose death we're investigating okay and here we have you sitting right there and one of the things that i said brought you here was technology so technology brought you guys together brought us together okay did it pick you up out of a hat it's not funny haha but funny in that there's that connection that you know him [Music] he's dead and you're here okay getting the picture oh yeah no now that he is linked with the murder gondola shuts down and only responds with non-committal noises and one-word answers he knows exactly what is happening but he will make the detective work for any information are you involved in any way with that no no i think that's what he's trying to ask no you mentioned your girl right how long you've been with her um staying with her at that that house um steady maybe the last month and a half i would give it a scary day yeah like steady stay every day for a month and a half yeah i could could be longer i don't you know could be a bit longer and you said you're not sure um how many times you went to this uh mr roosevelt's house but yeah would you say more than five times i would say so yeah okay yeah and you have an idea of where he lives at right yeah you've been to his house you know how to get there yeah it's off of pleasant hill yeah okay and uh i'm guessing you know the layout of the house because obviously you've been there yeah i've been there it's just really open it's open uh yeah it's like really open yeah i don't know that family too well all right but did he invite you inside and offer you anything when you when you go there well when i go there i'm normally yeah for service i'm inside i don't do outside work at all what areas of the house do you get to go to well i've been in his office i've been at the dining room table working on his um his wife's laptop uh i've been in his garage okay um and i've used the restroom there before okay and um i know you said earlier and i'm tired you've done several different things right some of which is um computer stuff and some of which is just helping around yeah computers and appliances the computer stuff um i guess you're pretty you're pretty good with that i do the basics when it comes to computers um he really needed help with a lot of just basic stuff like the are you did you take any classes for computers no i self taught everything yeah what kind of things that you know how to do with the computer well i started with building computers but right now um i just do like virus removals i just bring over some software yeah it just removes some viruses um he mainly needed um it helped with his email okay he was saying that he did not sync his email no is that with his computer or her computer with his and her both what kind of computer did he have um hp was it um a laptop or um oh no it was a desktop she had she had the laptop yes okay did you ever take any of the electronic stuff home for testing or repair no it was always at the home yeah i never liked taking stuff out you bring it back and they can say um this wasn't here i have a big scratch now it's yeah that's a bigger headache than you who could believe like okay um any um i guess he had viruses you said yeah always is there a reason why i tell him his god it has to be the websites he frequents because when i leave him i leave him white you know i verify with him that he is fully protected and he'll call me and say he has a problem do you get to i'm i'm a real dummy when it comes down to the computer world do you um are you able to like uh see the websites that maybe he's going into that's maybe giving them a ride virus or something your history or what have you noticed something like hey you shouldn't be going to this website because it gives you viruses like how would you educate them in not getting murdered well the first thing i do is i add an ad blocker to his browser okay that will eliminate most of the viruses um i advise him to keep it on if he gets any pop-ups that's asking him to allow this page to show over his pop-up locker just deny it but when it came to using the computer he was pretty basic he said so he said he only logs into like his social sites or his email okay did you notice any i guess uh irregular stuff that would cause a virus or damage to the computer no okay so it wasn't in his history then that was given problems um i honestly i cannot tell you where he used to get these viruses from i really don't know where he browsed but i know that he always would have like a virus issue and so when you went to his history dances around the source of the viruses anyone with a basic grasp of computers knows that many viruses come from viewing porn sites in fact it is usually the first thing that comes to mind when someone complains about that particular problem as someone experienced in computer repair he should be able to state this as a possibility without even looking at the web history the fact that he isn't bringing it up during questioning is telling you couldn't see well i didn't go into his history i tend to not go into people's history i showed them how to clear it if they would like to so you guys see what the type of websites used to go on no you can't do it it's not good for me i don't need to know i just i do all i need to do is make sure that he's virus free keep an ad blocker on there and just educate him on what not to do in case he gets any like notifications or likes i find that funny because i think you you kind of have to um you can't avoid not seeing the history i know the kind of history he had on his computer and i think you do too no i i honestly don't go through history so the viruses that you find on his computer right did you work did you run um windows program through it windows defender yeah i usually use i like to bring norton over mcgrathy or something like that do a quick scan leave it that way uninstall it and then leave windows defender on there and you never saw websites no like like websites like this is general history i mean if you open it you're going to see like whatever the person is doing at the moment but like i don't go to the history tab and go searching for your history like he's not even by accident you can't [ __ ] he uh honestly it's not easy to just do that by accident you'd actually have to hit the history tab then that's what i'm saying that's not something you just can do by accident if you can just you know navigate around the screen so he had he asked you um did you have anything to do with what happened to him did he not i'm still trying to figure out what's this situation like what happened to him and he's dead i understand this you see you know he has said this but what i mean what else is to say he's dead yeah well we're just trying to figure out if he had anything in his computer that might he may or may not should have like you know and last time i checked like i said i'm not a computer genius but like i know like i heard that if you go to websites you can get viruses i also heard that if you like download stuff there's a potential to get um oh yeah viruses yeah that's that's i think we're asking you if there was anything that um like i said we don't know the gentleman like you know did he have anything in his computer that you probably shouldn't have had um i mean you you you got to play with both of their computers yeah i as far as should not have i i don't think so i wouldn't believe so you didn't seem like he would have something he shouldn't have what's your um do you have friends in kissimmee not really i really don't know much people out there hey city hansi that's even a new thing like that's why it's not a new thing i don't know my father's been over there over a year now it's a newer area not a lot of people um most of my friends are like in new york jersey you know people went to school with um even atlanta you know they have a few friends lingering around there did you know mr roosevelt was from new york yeah yes when we originally met i'm pretty sure that was the discussion [Music] any any other friends um that you talk to all the time hang out with or associates um i don't know no i just a girl yeah my girlfriend my sister you know our family so what's your what's your normal routine for a day um i check my email check to see if i have any calls if not i advertise i buy and resell so if somebody has a cell phone that probably needs to be refurbished or somebody has a laptop that can possibly be refurbished they sell it for cheap i'll try to buy it get upgraded parts and resell any discussion about his business in general is open and straightforward but any questions regarding the search history of the victim's computer are met with a defensive edge and an effort to avoid as someone paid to perform a service there is no reason to deny at least some level of knowledge about what was on the computer doing so only proves that he knows it is connected with the murder he has succeeded only in drawing more suspicion in his effort to distance himself during the day yeah how has business been recently it sucks yeah it really sucks um the buy-in reselling is actually a bit better than the appliance repair itself well um the appliance repair is kind of slow right now only thing i really see a lot of is dryers lately and yeah kind of sucks right now when you did these repairs i think you mentioned to my partner that roosevelt paid you in cash yeah did uh how does the price points work out well for him i was just giving him a discount you know um he said he would give me some referrals if you know if i you know just took care of him he said that he didn't want to be taken advantage of because he had a guy in new york that would look at his machine he charged him a flat rate and i'm pretty sure that's how i stuck with letting them know ten dollars gas and depending on what it may be we can range from like 25 to 35 dollars for the call because it was always short calls it was nothing ever too long or expensive and when it was time for you to leave i guess when the job was done and you pay you you just yeah you just here you go sometimes you tip okay and i guess he took out the money from his wallet like like yeah out of his pocket or you know okay did you notice this house if it was modernized um if it was where um you know you can control everything on your phone what do you call them like a smart home yes exactly i'm not sure i'm not sure i never seen him control anything in the house off his phone and nothing was hooked up to his computer um his computer he has a computer a printer he has a monitor he has a cable box i believe or a router and that was it only thing hooked up around his computer so home wasn't smart that you could recall no i never seen him control anything off his phone that's like you could dim your lights and turn stuff off and on yeah i know what you mean i've never seen that before that at least you just said well i never see i mean you can't really tell until you actually see somebody using it i don't i never seen him actually use any of those features did you notice anything else around his house on the outside of this house no no never noticed the security cameras he had oh yeah definitely i thought i'm thinking you told him no outside um he ever have you work on those no he actually was gonna refer the person who did those to me for my parents um she's uh he said i think it was a person that his wife knew and that he works for a company but he does that on the side and he charges you like a flat rate because my parents are talking about you know doing that but we never move forward with that so you know anything else you didn't do anything outside you said everything was inside the house uh yeah except for one time in the garage that's about it what was in the garage he had one of those like open windows that he wanted to install a pull-down line like the wireless blinds i think they're called and that was it that was it yeah how would you um how would you get there from oh to his house yeah um it's a straight run down 1792 so you get to pleasant hill and then you make a right and then you drive to the street and then you make a left yeah and um you'll go by yourself yeah when you do these jobs yeah and during the murders someone deliberately damaged the security cameras this could imply that the killer had prior knowledge of their location although with the growing popularity of affordable cameras it's safe to assume that most people have some type of system um are you driving like a company van or car what are you driving a minivan a minivan and it's always a minivan yeah majority of the time if it's not a minivan it would actually end up maybe being my sister's vehicle but i don't think i've ever been there in my sister's vehicle what kind of vehicle your sister got um it was that camry that was at the house okay i'm guessing you dropped that vehicle too no i'm sometimes but she's like a busybody i hardly get that vehicle so it's mainly the van did you get a chance to talk to um to miss mrs roosevelt no you don't talk to mr his business is always with him yeah okay all right give me a second all right okay don't touch this sir not a problem just for a second what do um what do people call you rico rico all right rico i'll be straight up with you dude i think you're a really nice guy you know and i think you have um it seems like a good sense of humor you know because for us especially for me um i think it's important and this job for us to have kind of a sense of humor because you know what we do for a living right yeah right so being a homicide cop we see a lot of bad stuff um so to be light at heart helps so not your british at home and they're just going to tear you up so that's the way that's the reason i am where i am and for you it seems like you kind of have a good disposition okay i personally personally for me um and i say this through my experience through what i've done in this investigation um i'm gonna be honest with you to tell you that i know that you're not telling me everything and people have their reasons for that and hopefully this morning we're gonna find out your reason for that because straight up you ain't telling me the truth but i'm going to help you i'm going to help you right now you say about what do you remember probably about halfway to our conversation i started asking you about his house and his computer smart home and stuff like that so when you did work for him you did it on his computer yeah i told you that i saw his computer and i saw what was in that computer and we talked about history i saw his history and i saw the [ __ ] that he was doing what was he doing he was doing some pretty nasty stuff there in this besides homicide that'd be the second worst thing a person can do and it was on his computer and i think you saw that and you told yourself you're a father of a nine-year-old an 11 year old so you have kids so when someone who you working for you know this is my personal opinion you run into some [ __ ] that i don't think anybody in society really um goes for i think that can make a person angry so you did work in this house yes you saw the monitor you saw that he had a surveillance system in his house yeah the monitor right above his computer then you saw the camera system yeah okay so do you understand being a computer guy how this stuff is stored right um you say what do you mean like stored like setup and stuff set up memory so you're familiar with that yeah everything pretty much has memory so you know there's there's a hard drive where you can store memory and then you have the cloud yeah okay so i told you in my explanation that technology brought you here okay so you putting two and two together now technology camera system you in this house you kind of get it now i've been to this house and i'm pretty sure yeah okay so i don't think you get what he's talking about at all the detective lays everything on the line and says he knows gondola is lying gondola tries to act confused and bewildered but it is a stall tactic at best i just want to make sure you you get what he's talking about do you understand what you're saying the camera system yeah people and me keep going and you said we're together that's right if you don't understand something just just ask it's okay man a lot of people sometimes don't i mean this isn't looking good yeah i'm being good well not it's not looking good for you and i'm telling you that we didn't pick you out of a hat we did not the investigation led right to you okay i can't see how you can i can i see exactly how you understand there's a process in this country right when it comes to law enforcement investigations making arrests you know and all that stuff okay so we had basically had to prove that you had something to do with this death me yeah no yeah no no no no no no please don't do that no yeah so you had nothing to do with it no not at all and here's the thing i didn't see anything but i'm going to tell you i'm going to tell you this i'm going to tell you this in my experience i've sat in this chair thousands of times i poured a chair like this and had someone in that chair thousands of times and i'm going to tell you dude i might be bullied i might [ __ ] a lot i have business humor there's a couple things i believe and number one dude i'm a strong christian person and when somebody says and you haven't done it yet and i give you credit for this the same people that sat in that chair would say i didn't do it i swear to god i and those same people sat there and i know what i know they were freaking lying out their ass okay so it takes just more than just saying that and we're not going gonna have someone sat uh sitting there like you are in handcuffs because we ain't got nothing up because we do we always do we do our homework before that so understand so this is what we do we don't necessarily have to bring people in here we don't because if we have the evidence we just make an arrest and exit pass the paperwork onto the courthouse and we're done okay but we do bring people in here to give them the opportunity to explain because there's always an explanation for something unless you're a cold-hearted ass freaking killer you don't give a [ __ ] as to the reason we don't get many of those because normally we get people here that either made a mistake something happened in the spur of the moment it should change because in florida so one of the biggest things when it comes to what we do is pre-meditation you know what that means not the complete definition pre-meditation is somebody to have a thought about doing something talking about it planning it and then doing it i understand okay that's a coherent person mm-hmm yeah we get people that make mistakes and i can tell you right now my man you made a mistake and i'm saying that based on our conversations and our interactions because to me you don't seem like somebody who freaking went out there and playing this [ __ ] and [ __ ] i don't have anything to do with this the what they know i don't know i want to believe you and that's why we haven't heard this because i want to have a better understanding and believe you and me and him for a little bit at odds i really don't have anything to do with this [Music] so you went to fix his computer i know you saw the child porn on that computer child porn no i never seen child porn on his computer really never really so let me ask you this did you ever discuss the stuff he used to do with friends of yours gondola denies any involvement but his protests are weak and lack conviction he's hanging everything on being able to deny any knowledge about the pornography without seeming to realize that just knowing that it was the motive for the murder implicates him yeah [Music] so what if i tell you that during my investigation i found out information like that to cooperate what i already knew that will make you look bad because i've never seen the child porn no because i think you did and i know that others know you did [Music] but you sit here and you deny it i can prove it i can freaking prove it so for you to sit here and i mean i i know you might be scared and that'll be normal yeah that's normal but the reason why you're sitting right here right now and not sitting at the county jail is because i wanted to hear your side of the story all right i have nothing to do with it okay let me tell you this i'm not gonna i'm not gonna play my whole all my card but check this out some of the some some of the stuff we find out i can tell you right now i know what you were driving um did you rent a vehicle recently my mother yeah what kind of vehicle was it uh ultimate ultimate who makes ultima uh nissan lisa yeah did she wrecked it for you yeah okay because like i told you the van broke down for right transmission yeah when did she rent this car for you uh jeez i don't know um [Music] [ __ ] i had it for about i can't remember when she got it when did you return this that was a crazy day too i can't even remember um we returned it my father returned on tuesday i i can't remember last week possibly you said something you said that it was a crazy day did you recall because i had to get the she told me make sure that your vehicle is clean because if we take it back they're charging the 400 cleaning fee would you go with it and think about my mother she had to take it back did you go with her yes because we had to take both vehicles and running yeah exactly where did you return it to uh the hertz and hane city by the toyota yeah what time uh i had to be there by 1 30 or 1 o'clock you know what those cars have on them what's that gps okay okay yeah of course yeah so do you think what once again here comes technology that we can't obtain information yeah i'm pretty sure okay so take that into consideration take a surveillance um and take into consideration so here we have two things that unless you're really really good um you can't beat technology okay so let me ask you this then today is sunday mm-hmm so on monday mm-hmm the ninth it's the ninth okay do you remember that day monday the ninth of this one no no the ninth uh i'm nothing without my phone really like when i am able to use it that kind of gives me uh ideas the day before you turned in the car okay you remember that a little bit better okay what happened that day nothing really you didn't do nothing for a whole day i mean usual routine um i get up listen calls um usually advertise a little um [Music] i've been picking up my girlfriend every day and that's about it do you remember picking up your girl that day well i mean i've been picking her up almost every day i mean you're making it seem like you're telling me what you did that day but you really don't even know is that what you're saying i mean like i said usually when i have my phone i can just run through my list i can kind of get an idea like what i was doing my partner here could tell you what you did that day it was a week a week to the day that you told us you last talked to mr roosevelt okay when you said you called them say you were going to be available yeah um okay so a week from that a week in a day you return the car so that was on monday we're asking you about the detectives press harder letting the facade of friendliness drop gondola is nervous and it is evident in the way his voice cracks when he is forced to answer and you say you don't recall do you recall you familiar with st club yeah you're familiar with sinclair you know we're 15 you're not cousin you're 192. not cool yeah 15 in narcos yeah 15 is dark cousin [ __ ] 192. okay okay so how has been that we can put your car right there in saint cloud i've been staying in well it's that's a little further east than what you're saying what business would you have up there in that it's a area seat where was where exactly is that it's not cool and 192 there's a big intersection there's like one dixie to the left there's a publix over there oh i was there who seen dixie hmm damn if you can just give me an idea what else is there i can't recall the windex you're 192 you're heading east 15 crosses it it's narcosis crosses it there's a one dixie to the left there's a little taco bell right there in the corner um diagonally back there there's a cvs it's a strip and then i see there's a publix strip mall on the right there's a 7-eleven 7-eleven i remember i went there one day because my friend he needed gas he came down and i gave him some gas money what friend was that um my friend where is he at now titusville i think it's gold well no but what's your boy's name so he said he lives in tigersville i think it's no coco excuse me he was a coco yeah okay so he came he met us 7-11 because what he needed some gas he was he was going through some hard times and he needed gas money to go back and forth to work so he drove from coco yeah to that 7-eleven so you can give him some gas yeah he had to go to work the next day he came with his girlfriend i believe and he needed some gas man what's the girl's name i don't know his girlfriend at all would you say his last name so i guess a reasonable person would say my man joe from coco cocoa to there so you can give him some gas yup and he told me it was only like a 40 minute ride he just needed some gas he needed to make sure he got to work that's an 80 mile round trip yeah to get gas that he's going to need to get to work yes that'll make no sense hey listen tell them you came for gas um i hate money we act matter of fact he actually gassed up right there at that gas station yeah so there's video that we did now definitely yeah all right so what'd you do after that um even the gas and how's your old back did your back work saint cloud oh right there bye rebecca well you just got me so you went from that cell right back to the house right that's what you're saying i'm pretty sure think about that man think about it yeah i'm trying i'm trying it's just me it's this is crazy um the story gondola presents to the detectives is ridiculous it is pretty apparent that he used those few moments of stalling when he asked for a description of the location to make something up the detectives unsurprisingly aren't buying it i'm pretty sure yeah pretty sure i'm going to give a little piece of advice right now okay when you're talking about the rest of your life you may want to be more than just pretty sure so you may want to think about the answer you're going to give me oh man my mind is scattered all over the place right now do you remember what time you gave him guys yeah it was late what's late real late uh it could have been midnight after midnight how much it works i gave him about 40 50 bucks you don't know what you're getting about 40 yeah about 40 50 was it cash yes just for him to pump up gas and that's it you didn't talk to him yeah i mean you know we spoke you know how's everything somebody's girlfriend is going so crazy it come about that you guys decided to do that what's that go to a several opener because he needed gas money i wasn't going to him he had to come to me he called you said he needed gas money he touched me and you know no i don't know that's why he even took a text one day said he needed gas one day it wasn't that day he texted you he text me he calls me a lot for 20 years 30 years you know that long oh yeah i've been knowing them forever forever how long um we went to high school together yeah yeah oh [ __ ] so you talking about good yeah we went 15 20 years uh yeah i suppose so yeah so that day who made whose idea was it to me there that well originally my idea was to meet him on nova road at the shell yeah and that gas station was closed and i told them well you're going to have to meet me either at wow or 7-eleven then i realized 7011 was closer than wawa coming from the nova road so i just waited at 7 00. but was it out of the comments if you heard that you called him to offer the gas or did he call you asking um oh no no i might have contacted him and told him you know if you still need gas or something like that you know you can come on down because he's a late person you know he works nights he gets off around like 11 and yeah so you called to offer up gas money honestly i can't remember the whole situation but i did meet him there to give him gas and you said when you guys were at the gas station you guys talked yeah inside car outside the car i can't remember shooting the [ __ ] you know yeah i know he was talking about his girlfriend she was naked she had to drop all the way down here just to get the gas and he should have had the gas money he should have saved money or you know rico remember when i told you that part of the things that we try to do is try to figure out or somebody playing this [ __ ] out premeditated or it was just something that happened that was an accident self-defense or something you know two totally different types of people it's basically the easiest way to put it is yeah monster or someone who made a mistake that's probably the best way to explain so you tell me that you gave him gas you guys bullshitted he got gas took off you went back to back to the house you did not go back to the house i know for a fact you can go back to the house now listen listen rico listen to me listen to me you're not here you're not here just because we're trying to pin this [ __ ] on you you're here because we know that you did okay but this is what i'm telling you this is what i'm telling you man you're here really as an opportunity to explain to us what happened that day that's it it was an accident [ __ ] happened i was pissed he was pissed i don't know but it definitely would benefit you because ultimately for me you know i'm going home at some point today right and chances are that you're not [Music] me yeah this is not good i didn't do anything i did not do anything even after everything the detectives have to say gondola still maintains that he is innocent a confession is unlikely but although it would be nice they have enough evidence against him without it you're going to stick to that story just like that just like that i think when i i already presented so much [ __ ] to you that you should at least give you that doubt in your mind that damn kid you know i didn't do anything so yeah all right you got um your phone you said you said it was phone calls right yeah maybe that'll help out a little bit um did you delete everything do you still have it and i didn't delete anything so the phone calls would probably help you out and this just mattered that a little bit more but here's the problem i don't know if you use iphone once you get to a certain thing on your recent history it it goes away it goes away you have to i don't know how much history but after a certain like if you'll notice if you look at iphone history you'll only see like the last few recent days okay well maybe you could help um like i said man i want to try to believe more what you're saying and this is where we're at um where we talk about it because there's some stuff that he knows more than i do um but like an easy example is some foam stuff i believe is that right um technology is forte okay um why would all those things you know phone cars um video video why would that keep coming back to you i don't know somebody set you up i don't know did somebody set you up no i don't think so all right that explains that part of it so like you drive that that car i guess your mom which car the one that was rented that you talked about yeah did anybody else drive that car um maybe my mother or one time does your mom know where mr roosevelt lives at no who knows where mr volzerel is that besides you yeah i know just me really so you're being a driver of that vehicle you're the only one that knows where mr foswell is at there's every indication that that vehicle was there how can you explain that i don't know and that's what we need your help from yeah that's actually where we i honestly thought you were like a certified i.t guy and maybe knew more than no he's pretty good you know yeah um but just that simple thing you can't explain what's that why would you the only person who drives that vehicle that knows where mr roosevelt lives at would be at mr roosevelt's house how do you explain something like that but i wasn't at his house what i'm trying to figure out then if it wasn't you a the only person who drives that car and maybe your mom who doesn't know where mr roosevelt what you're telling me is now that there's like a a ghost that that drove that car there no i'm not telling you that i see what you're saying i just i if you could explain it better maybe we have a better understanding and the same thing goes with like what did you say like a video or video stuff now obviously the goal is to perhaps get the the true side of what happened maybe you were involved in something no i wasn't involved in anything so there's a lot of questions that you can't explain like give answers to but um and your only answer was like i don't know i don't know yeah i was this is oh man this is crazy like so obviously we know that you go to mr roosevelt's house right yes we know that all right you are i guess a friend of the family we want to call or acquaintance or even a business person so when it comes to like dna stuff it's gonna be common that your dna is gonna be there right this may be the evidence that gondola finds the least concerning he has a legitimate reason to have been in the house multiple times so dna evidence of him being there doesn't seem like something that can be used against him has he been to that house yeah right it's typical uh what's the crazy part of it is there's a thing called and i know you know because you're a computer guy there's certain timestamps right so like when you upload something that gets into a computer i just learned this stuff so i'm excited uh you upload stuff into a computer it gets like stamped right um yeah i suppose right or when you um like you said something uh big where i learned too history all history is time stamped yeah right yeah they show you your time you understand that yes so this this new stuff that i'm learning about and he's like i said he's a pro everything has a time stamp you know what's crazy how much that those time stamps says a certain date a certain time now let me ask you this can i manipulate those time stamps i don't think so i don't think so either and a lot of like geniuses in the that type of business you can't manipulate those timestamps right no i don't think so so help me understand a little bit more maybe i guess for him to understand too um why is all those timestamps pointing at one direction and only one direction i don't know dude that's going to be defense for everything i don't know i don't know that rico this is one this is i i don't i really don't think you understand this okay and i'm telling you i don't think you're seeing this okay there's a difference of what you're looking at there's a huge difference between say it again pre-meditation and then something else happened that's why that's why you're sitting in that chair right now man i hear what you're saying because i think no not too bad i know i know that i could develop premeditation on you i didn't do anything you know what state you're in right yes okay so you're going to tell me that you met at 7-eleven to give him gas yeah okay how good of a friend is to you um a pretty good friend good enough that you you can trust him with with personal stuff um [Music] sort of in a way is he good enough friends with you that he and trust you were personal stuff i i would say sort of like you know we we know each other a long time but we don't talk as often then we have spurs where we do talk for a while and then we stop talking so he says personal but what about secrets secrets yeah things that no one should ever ever talk about ever mm-hmm i wouldn't say so have you told them any secrets lately um i don't know not that i can think of lately yeah i don't know he hasn't been doing too good lately i'm not you know to feel like well i don't mean it too good i don't know what kind of listen i want you to really think about what i just said um really think about it okay is he someone um that you might have told the secret to i i don't think so you don't think you should know that i i mean what do you consider a secret i mean killing somebody no i listen i have nothing to do with that like i have nothing this is this is crazy come on when he set you up i don't think so i mean i learned a lot this week especially about this video stuff you know like the video surveillance stuff and do you know that um there's some video surveillance you see video but have you ever seen the one with video and audio yeah you know what i'm talking about yeah okay do you think that i guess certain video and audio could have been captured where secrets were shared is that possible the detective is insinuating that they have a recording of gondola confessing to his friend whether they have such a thing or not isn't important all that matters is if gondola buys their claim and admits his guilt um i don't know but i want you to really think about it okay but listen i'm going to tell you man i'll be straight up with you um i don't owe anything at all you know i don't know him you know but i know a little bit about him and i know he's done some stuff too he's had issues in the past and you're saying that he's having issues now are you talking about financial personal or what to me it kind of looked like he's using drugs right now that's what it kind of looks like and that's what i mean like i don't you know doesn't look too good like where he's like feeding or i mean high all the time or i don't think he's high all the time aside from his protestations of innocence gondola is unable to speak in absolutes sometimes this is a characteristic of someone who lacks confidence but it is also a trick liars use so that they can come back and alter their story did you talk to him after that after the gas station um yeah i think so i think i did did you call him did you text him geez probably probably yeah probably what i'll probably text them probably text them you don't remember you call them maybe you remember having a conversation um with him prior to him getting to the 7-eleven yeah yeah i think so you did what you guys talking about that's a rough one too i i'm gonna only if you know like i'm talking to people day to day so it's like oh i can't remember the exact conversation so and that's the same thing you said like a conversation you had at the gas station while he's pumping gas like i said we that was just shooting the [ __ ] you know he was just telling me about how his girl was angry that he didn't have gas and i don't know and he kind of i don't know it just looked bad i don't know but as bad as this situation right now looks for you all right apparently i don't oh man this is just yeah man let me tell you i got an arrest warrant for you and charging you murder me yeah and guess what the opportunity was there my man the opportunity was there so based on others nobody though i wouldn't murder nobody i did not murder i would not take a life how about two what how about two two boy two people two lives of innocent ass old love-biting god-fearing people i would not i need you to explain that day a little bit better then this is terrible just tell us the truth okay uh tell us honestly look just like you said we worked our asses off man and probably just as much as you did when i say that it's because you ain't stupid i'm not gonna call you stupid but there's certain things that you did to try to avoid being that stupid guy unfortunately those acts or actions that you've done were easily traceable tracked you down you don't get what happened this morning by accident at your house right i know so just like i explained to you earlier and he explained to you earlier there's always two sides of the story the one the one that we got is pretty good because i told you it's time stamped but i'm sure i know for a fact that you have your own story i know that for a fact already it's if you're willing to release that story i don't have a story i want you to understand me you know why because i could go he taught me a lot we could literally go minute by minute of what occurred july 9 2018 the day that you said was even crazy for you you want to know why because that's going to be the day that you're never going to forget in your whole life whether you're at home whether you're in jail you will never forget that day ever no matter what i say what we do that day is going to be imprinted like a time stamp in your brain and in your heart july 9th forever forever and when i you might be confused because it was late but it's going to be that day hours before you met up with so i could refresh your memory even more that day you're never going to forget you know exactly what happened when it happened you know more detail than anyone could imagine you made a decision that day to do something it's clear and day where you messed up was you didn't track your steps that well what's that what are you talking about i already had told you i want to repeat it okay i can repeat it the detectives make a last-ditch effort to show gondola that he is cornered with no way out sometimes this is enough to break a suspect down if they aren't habitually in trouble with the law for more experienced criminals the tactic is almost completely useless a your phone all right your phone is time stamped for every little thing you do yeah you understand this okay that's your phone nobody else's phone the vehicle that you drove [Music] this timestamp only you know where mr roosevelt lives camera system that's timestamped which is awesome meeting locations phone calls i could go on and on i'm not gonna tell you that the idea is to get the story from you i have no story because it boils down to this all that he says boils down to one freaking thing that i said already it boils down to you plant this hard freaking big cold hearted murder or or your intentions were something else something got something something went wrong that day and them two ended up dead that's the one i think i tell you the way the way that you're acting your answers compared to what we've told you and we've told you more than we normally tell people we don't have to do that everything comes back to the fact that you're a freaking stone freaking cold killer no and you know who's going to see that right who you know is going to ultimately see that everybody but i'm not i wouldn't do something like that the world i wouldn't do something like that you can't say that i mean i just said it and you know what i'm gonna prove it i'm gonna prove it i did not do anything like that is there going to be anything in that house that is going to support you or support us i don't know what you mean what i'm saying is there anything in that house the a perhaps doesn't belong to you b that there's something in that house that you have might have used or touched uh during this incident um i mean i just keep going what if there's stuff in your house that belongs to mr roosevelt is that possible no okay we're gonna i guess we have to go baby steps or whatever i really don't know we have to go baby steps but yeah i can tell you i'm done going baby steps with you i understand i i am um and you know ultimately it's a person's decision it's an individual decision which way we want to take this okay um unfortunately you're the one in that position not me okay and you can sit here and say a million times i don't know wasn't me but i can prove it all right look i don't mean to be rude right but this looks bad can i see a lawyer please it finally hits gondola how much trouble he is in and although it is too late to undo any damage he asked to speak with a lawyer federico gondola has been charged with premeditated murder and is awaiting trial it has already been decided that he will not have to face the death penalty if you enjoyed this video and want to support me further there is a patreon link in the description where you can do just that thank you for watching stay safe

Channel: Stranger Stories

Views: 197,830

Keywords: true crime, crime psychology, stranger stories, full interrogation, police interrogations, jcs, jcs inspired, confession tapes, psychology, police, footage, jcs like, true crime documentary, forensic psychology, crime documentary, documentary, investigation, criminal psychology, interrogation, short documentary, case analysis, interrogation analysis, the interrogation of, the case of, crime master, blackmail, killer interrogartion, psychopath interrogation, psychology criminal

Id: k2818mgGhH4

Length: 88min 4sec (5284 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 11 2022