Florida police release images of shot Britons' last hours

US detectives anxious to speak to women in video to help fill in 'lost hour' between closing time and discovery of bodies

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Richard Luscombe in Miami
The Guardian, Wednesday 20 April 2011
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CCTV still released by police showing James Cooper and James Kouzaris in a bar just after midnight on the morning they were killed. Photograph: Sarasota Police/PA
Detectives have released video images showing British holidaymakers James Kouzaris and James Cooper enjoying their final night out in a Florida bar less than three hours before the friends were found shot dead in a crime-plagued neighbourhood.

The series of grainy stills shows the pair drinking and talking to several women, who police want to interview to help fill in the crucial "lost hour" between closing time in downtown Sarasota in the early hours of Saturday and the discovery of their bodies with multiple gunshot wounds on a street in Newtown several miles away.

"None of these women are suspects but we'd like to see if they know what the victims were talking about shortly before their deaths," said Captain Paul Sutton of the Sarasota police department.

"The bars are open until 2am and at 2.56am we got the call. Assuming they stayed until closing time, it would be a very narrow time frame. We'd like to know if they were talking about their plans for the evening, anyone they were going to meet up with, where they might be going."

Assistant state attorney Karen Fraivillig said that Shawn Tyson, 16, will be tried as an adult on first-degree murder charges following his arrest on Monday.

A grand jury will hear allegations within two weeks that he shot and killed Cooper, 25, from Warwick, and Kouzaris, 24, of Northampton, during their three-week holiday with relatives on the exclusive west coast barrier island of Longboat Key.

"Despite the fact that he's being tried as an adult, the death penalty simply doesn't apply in Florida to anyone who's under 18 years old," she said.

Sutton said that although police were "very happy" to have a suspect in custody, much work needed to be done.

Detectives have visited several bars along Sarasota's Main Street, where the friends, who met as students at the University of Sheffield, were drinking. The images were recorded at a popular hangout called Smokin' Joe's.

"We're going all out on that. We've looked at video and interviewed employees and we're trying to piece together the events of Friday night and Saturday morning for our two victims," Sutton said.

Investigators believe Tyson did not have access to a car and that he was already waiting in Newtown when an unknown third party arrived with the pair shortly before 3am.

Police also believe the two were there of their own volition. "It's plausible they were taken there and confronted by at least one individual," Sutton said. "We're continuing to investigate the possibility that others were involved."

Family members attacked suggestions that Cooper was buying marijuana. "He never did drugs. He did not even smoke. He was a professional tennis coach. Taking drugs would be the last thing on his mind," Desmond Walton, Cooper's grandfather, told reporters.