CRIME

14 years later, 2004 Deltona massacre resonates

Tony Holt
tony.holt@news-jrnl.com

Six people were murdered with bats and knives, one of the bodies was desecrated and a small dog was stomped to death during the rampage.

The Deltona massacre, commonly known as the Xbox murders, took place 14 years ago this week and it is considered the worst mass murder in Volusia County history.

The slaughter took place around 1 a.m. Aug. 6, 2004, at 3106 Telford Lane. Four men and two women were killed so violently that blood was splattered on every wall in almost every room of the one-story house. The killings were carried out by four men, led by Troy Victorino, a 6-foot-6 tall gang leader who was on probation for savagely beating a man with a walking stick eight years earlier.

Victorino and one of his accomplices, Jerone Hunter, were sentenced to death for the killings, but those sentences were overturned following a Florida Supreme Court ruling in October 2016. The ruling stated that Florida's death penalty was unconstitutional, in part, because it didn't require a unanimous jury vote.

Victorino and Hunter were sentenced to death for four of the six murders, but jurors didn't vote unanimously. The State Attorney's Office has decided to try again for a death sentence, so Victorino and Hunter are expected to be resentenced in 2019.

Then-Volusia County sheriff Ben Johnson still vividly remembers the start of that morbid day when he learned about the bodies inside the house on Telford.

"I was at home getting ready to go to work and my chief deputy, Bill Lee, called me up and told me '(We've) had a very bad event.' "

When he got to the scene, Johnson watched a video taken by one of the detectives, who had pointed the camera at every area of the house where there was abundance of blood. It shook the sheriff, who had to describe the crimes to the litany of reporters who had descended on Telford.

"That's a day you just never forget," Johnson said. "Most law enforcement officers never, never deal with such a large tragedy."

The victims were Erin Belanger, 22; Francisco "Flaco" Ayo-Ramon, 30; Michelle Nathan, 19; Anthony Vega, 34; Roberto "Tito" Gonzalez, 28; and Jonathan Gleason, 17. Belanger and Ayo-Ramon were boyfriend and girlfriend, as were Nathan and Vega, and both couples lived at the Telford house. Gonzalez and Gleason were staying the night so they could get up early and go to work the next day.

Most of them worked at the Burger King on Elkcam Boulevard about two miles away.

[READ MORE: Memories of Deltona massacre remain vivid]

[READ MORE: Deltona killer Troy Victorino's latest death penalty challenges struck down]

The killers, in addition to Victorino and Hunter, included Michael Salas and Robert Cannon. Hunter, Salas and Cannon were 18 years old at the time. Victorino was 26.

Salas and Cannon were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Belanger was a new Deltona resident, having moved with her boyfriend from Massachusetts. She had hoped to find more economic opportunity in a warmer climate. Her grandparents lived on Providence Boulevard, located about four miles west of Belanger's home on Telford. Her grandparents lived part of the year in Maine, so the house was vacant during the summer — at least it was supposed to be.

Belanger was the caretaker of the house while her grandparents were away. One day she noticed some belongings in the breezeway of the home. It appeared squatters had broken into the house and made a home there. She called the Volusia County Sheriff's Office and deputies told her to box up the items. She could do whatever she wanted with them.

Some of those items belonged to Victorino. Some of them may have been discarded or given away. That infuriated Victorino, who had just gotten out of jail after posting bail on a recent battery charge. He had no place to stay and lost his stuff, including an Xbox game console — courtesy of Belanger. Prosecutors said Victornio was incensed because Belanger disrespected him. He decided to exact revenge.

Victorino was an intimidating force in and around Deltona. He used bullying as a tactic to get what he wanted. He managed to convince three impressionable young men to participate in a bloodbath.

After being inspired by the film, "Wonderland," which depicted an actual 1981 home-invasion mass murder in the Laurel Canyon section of Los Angeles, Victorino convinced Hunger, Salas and Cannon to inflict the same carnage at the home on Telford.

Victorino, Hunter, Cannon and Salas purchased aluminum bats from a Wal-Mart in New Smyrna Beach. From there, they drove to the house on Telford and forcibly entered through the front door. Victorino and Hunter carried out most of the brutality.

Hunter killed Nathan after he found her hiding under some laundry inside one of the closets, according to trial testimony. She pleaded for her life, but Hunter savagely beat her with a bat and then killed her with the knife.

Victorino found Belanger in the master bedroom, where he fatally beat her and stabbed her. He also raped her with the bat, detectives said.

The carcass of Belanger's dog, a Dachsund, was found lying near Belanger's body. It had been stomped to death.

The lead prosecutor in the case was then-state attorney John Tanner, who also still recalls the day he first saw the crime scene photos.

"It was straight out of a horror movie," he said. "You couldn't believe what you were seeing. ... It was the most horrendous crime scene I had ever seen and I have been at this for 50 years."

The killings shocked the Deltona community. The victims' families were spread across Florida, as well as the Northeast. Calls had to be made to them. The stories made national news. The trial was held in St. Augustine and was attended by spectators who never knew the victims or suspects. They wanted to witness it and see for themselves what kind of people could inflict such violence.

Bouquets of flowers were dropped off in the area of the house. One bouquet contained a note that read, "There really are monsters among us."

Gary Davidson was the spokesman for the Sheriff's Office at the time. He recalls how disturbing the gory images were even for the most experienced investigators who walked through the house.

"Of course every murder is brutal ... (but this) was like nothing we had ever seen," Davidson said. "The violence went so far beyond what it took to take a life that it was just impossible to fathom."

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