Charges dropped against 2 murder suspects

FORT MYERS, Fla.- Two Fort Myers men are now free and cleared in the senseless murder of a 5-year-old boy.

Andrew Faust Jr. was shot and killed in his Dunbar home last October. Tuesday night, the murder charges were dropped against his accused killers, Thomas Edison and Terrance Irons.

“Something I didn’t do, I did time for,” said Thomas Edison.

Edison tells WINK News he does not know who killed Faust.

“Hard. Away from my kids and my wife, knowing that I didn’t do this,” he said.

The State Attorney’s Office dropped all the charges for both men.

“The bottom line is that we had one eyewitness to the case and the eyewitness has since testified that she cannot remember anything. Therefore, we cannot put her on the stand and we cannot go forward without her,” said Chief Assistant State Attorney Amira Fox.

That witness is Cashae Smith and attorneys for both Edison and Irons say Smith’s story never added up.

“The statements she gave were inconsistent. They were almost implausible,” said Edison’s defense attorney Tracey Redd.

“We have said from day one that this was not a ‘prima fascie case’ which means there was not enough evidence to begin with,” said Iron’s defense attorney Joe Viacava.

Now that all the charges have been dropped the case is back to square one.

Fox says if new evidence somehow points back to Edison and Irons, “It is highly unlikely that we could ever come back against these two individuals,” said Fox.

“Sorry for her loss and I got a lot of kids and I don’t know that pain, so I just pray they find who did it,” said Edison.