DNA evidence helps Fort Myers cold case move forward

DNA technology has evolved so much in the past few years that Fort Myers detectives think they may be able to make a match in a 2014 cold case.

Angela McClary, mother of Deonte Redding, one of the victims in the double homicide, says Fort Myers is a small town—and in small towns, people talk. Investigators are banking on that, too, hoping someone will see this and realize it’s time to come forward.

Crime scene photos show evidence of an ambush, 19 shots fired by two assailants while the victims were still in their car.

“It was carnage in the car,” said Det. Matthew Alberto with the Fort Myers Police Department’s cold case unit.

Deonte Redding and his half-brother Zachary Blue were ambushed when they went to a friend’s house to gamble. Six witnesses were inside, but the shooters are still out there.

“They weren’t exactly cooperating, and they weren’t being completely honest,” Alberto said.

Six years later, Angela McClary chooses to remember a different picture of her son.

“He was my firstborn,” McClary said. “And he had that smile about him that you would see through him, and you couldn’t help but smile.”

The two people who killed her son remain unidentified, but the case was recently transferred to a team of cold case detectives who are breathing new life into the mystery. These men, referred to jokingly as “the old guys” by the rest of the department, collectively have more than 120 years of police experience.

“We started out, we each read through the case file; with what we had, we went and reworked the crime scene, we contradicted some of the assumptions that were made originally, and we basically showed how it transpired,” Alberto said. “We sent some evidence out for some new testing, some advanced DNA testing, see if we got lucky. And we’re compiling a list of subjects that we want to interview.”

The brass bullet casings found at the crime scene could prove the forensic silver bullet the detectives are hoping for. They said it was previously very rare to get usable DNA off of brass, but now there is up to a 30% solvability rate for such evidence.

While Redding was going to the home to gamble, McClary believes her son was set up, and so do the detectives.

“He had won a lot of money, a large amount of money that day, that evening, and I was told he was called back there, and I don’t think that he was called back there to gamble, because whoever called him back there knew that someone would be lurking in the bushes,” McClary said. “Everyone there was supposed to be his friend, and they let him down.”

“In doing some phone analysis, we discovered that there’s been communication within the last half hour between our victims and individuals inside the home,” said Det. Ed Harris. “We believe that phone communication may have been forwarded to the individuals who are lying in wait for this ambush.”

“There is a lead right now that we are following that we are hopeful with,” Alberto said.

And the family’s search for answers continues as well: Redding’s daughter, 12 at the time of his murder, is now in college studying criminal justice.

“She wants to find justice for her father,” McClary said.

McClary is hopeful a fresh set of eyes—or, in this case, older, more experienced eyes—will be the answer to her prayers.

“The day my son died, I prayed,” McClary said. “I prayed and prayed, and asked God to not let his case die. I wanted, regardless of what it took, to be in the front of the media, the police.”

If you have any information at all that can help crack the case, call Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers at 1-800-780-8477 or send an anonymous online tip.