12 May 2025 :
May 7, 2025 - Florida. Jury recommends death penalty for Troy Victorino and Jerone Hunter
A Volusia County jury recommended the death penalty in the resentencing trial for 2 men convicted in the so-called Xbox murders.
Troy Victorino, now 48, and Jerone Hunter, now 38, were convicted of breaking into a Deltona home and beating 6 people to death with baseball bats and stabbing them on August 6, 2004. According to the prosecution, one of the six victims, Erin Belanger, a 22-year-old girl, had convinced her grandmother to kick Eric Victorino, a gang leader who lived with her, out of the house. Apparently, the subsequent quarrel arose from the fact that Belanger did not want to return Victorino some personal belongings, including a video game console. The victims, apart from Belanger, were: Francisco Ayo-Roman, 30; Michelle Nathan, 19; Anthony Vega, 34; Roberto Gonzalez, 28; and Jonathan Gleason, 17.
They were initially sentenced to death in 2006 (see HoC 01/08/2006 and 21/09/2006), but had the penalty overturned on June 14, 2017 (see HoC) because none of the 4 death sentences they each received were based on unanimous recommendations from jurors. Florida now has a new law allowing non unanimous death sentences.
Victorino was the mastermind, but Hunter and 2 other men went inside with him and helped carry out the attack.
Victorino and Hunter were the only 2 originally sentenced to death. Neither of them have ever testified.
“We’ll never know exactly what each of them did inside that house because even today, even to this day, they’re still not telling you the truth about their roles in the murders,” prosecutor Heatha Trigones said in her closing argument.
The 2 other men involved in the crimes were Michael Salas, whose testimony was read at the resentencing trial. He was found guilty of murder, while another co-defendant, Robert Cannon, pleaded guilty. Both are serving life without parole sentences.
