MIAMI, FL. (THECOUNT) — Florida man, Michael Elliot Colon, has been identified as one of two suspects arrested in the murder of former Miami-Dade police officer, Johnnie Ridgeway III, in Sunrise earlier this month. Colon’s underage daughter was also arrested in the officer’s death.
Ridgeway, 51, was found dead in his Sunrise home Nov. 12 after being shot several times, Sunrise police said.
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On Sunday, Colon, 44, was arrested and charged with one count of premeditated murder.
He was living in the home with his aunt, Sonia Ridgeway, who is also Johnnie Ridgeway’s wife. Colon helped orchestrate the murder and enlisted his daughter as the driver for the crime, police say. She is also charged in the murder, but police are not identifying her because of her age, reports Sun-Sentinel.
Sonia Ridgeway said the incident may be over a past incident where Colon was bitten by Ridgeway’s dog. That claim has not been substantiated.
“I thought they loved him,” Sonia Ridgeway said, adding, however, that she believed an incident from the summer, in which one of Ridgeway’s dogs bit Colon’s hand, could be the cause.
According to NBC Miami, in 2015 Colon was charged with shooting a woman in the knee during an armed robbery and faced a mandatory sentence of 25 years in prison, but was acquitted after jurors agreed with lawyers who argued there were discrepancies in the evidence and witness descriptions of the suspect.
DEVELOPING::
Geo quick facts: Sunrise is a city in central-western Broward County, Florida, United States, in the Miami metropolitan area. It was incorporated in 1961 by Norman Johnson – a developer whose Upside-Down House attracted buyers to what was then a remote area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 84,439 – Wikipedia.