Three suspects are accused of shooting and killing an Indianapolis pizza delivery driver for his pizza, which they then took home to eat, investigators said.
Papa John’s driver and manager LaVon Drake, 24, reportedly hadn’t been scheduled to work Monday night, but had come in to help his co-workers.
The suspects were identified as Juwuan Terry, 18; Jason Epeards, 18; and Jasean Dale, 19. They are suspected of killing Drake with two different weapons, officials said, according to Fox 59 of Indianapolis.
“It’s devastating. … He was a good young man, a great employee and a great manager. I’m going to miss him so much.”
“It’s devastating,” Drake’s co-worker and friend Cheyenne Pryor told the Indianapolis Star. “He was a good young man, a great employee and a great manager. I’m going to miss him so much.”
A crowdfunding page has been set up for LaVon Drake, 24, who was killed while delivering pizza. (GoFundMe)
A neighbor saw Drake walk up to a vacant rental house, then noticed the suspects’ car parked near her house and jotted down the plate number, the report said.
Another witness saw the three suspects leave the house with a rifle and a pizza bag, Fox 59 reported.
Police say these men confessed to robbing and killing a Papa John’s delivery driver before taking the pizza he was delivering home to eat it. https://t.co/baxoiUhIxg
— FOX59 News (@FOX59) August 22, 2018
Police tracked the car to a nearby apartment complex where the men confessed to robbing and killing Drake, police said, according to the report.
The suspects had gone home “to eat the pizza,” investigators told the station.
.@MattKryger image from a candlelight vigil celebrating the life of LaVon Drake, an Indianapolis pizza manager who was killed Monday night while making a delivery. https://t.co/UkPcWIxrQX pic.twitter.com/6ovgVUMwm3
— IndyStar (@indystar) August 23, 2018
Drake was the manager at the local Papa John’s and wasn’t scheduled to work, “but his co-workers needed him,” the Indianapolis Star reported.
“He knew being a manager that he had to do what is needed from him, and if it was to fill in or stay later he would,” Pryor told IndyStar. “They called him in to help with delivery.”
Pryor added that all Drake did was “work and go home.”
“He never hardly went out. He was too busy taking care of his family, from biological to his Papa John’s family,” she said.
“I mean it really makes me sad, you know we’re just out here doing our job,” Tyler Gadberry, a Topper’s pizza delivery driver, told Fox 59.
The story left drivers like him “shaken,” the station reported.
“Anything can happen at any time.”
Kimberly Charles, a team leader at Topper’s pizza, told the station they have “an entire delivery area that we don’t go to because of reasons like that.”
“I feel so sorry for his family,” Charles said of Drake. “If we were to ever lose somebody here, which hopefully never happens, we would probably shut our store down, because we’re that big of a family.”
She stressed precautions such as carrying no more than $20 and delivering with a co-worker.
