SARASOTA – The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office is seeking information to help find the lead suspect in a deadly shooting.
“Our suspect decided that he was going to take care of this by trying to kill him and he was actually successful in doing that,” said Manatee County Sheriff’s Office PIO, Randy Warren.
Manatee County Deputies are investigating a homicide that happened Tuesday night at The Venue at Lockwood Apartments in Bradenton.
“What we know is that our suspect, Charles Heaven went to see his daughter because his daughter apparently having some issues with her boyfriend and in the course of the conversation with the boyfriend, Charles Heaven pulls out a gun and kills him,” said Warren.
The victim, 30-year-old Keith Smith was shot in the upper torso. He was taken to Blake Medical Center where he later died from his injuries. The suspect, Charles Heaven fled the scene.
“We really don’t know what his intentions were if he went over there because he was planning on killing him or he just went over there and he got into an argument, we understand there had been issues there in that relationship, our suspect has a long list of criminal history, quite a bit of violence, he has been convicted 12 times in the state of Florida we think he may be armed and probably is,” said Warren.
Heaven is now facing a second degree murder charge. The Gold Star Club of Manatee County is offering a reward of $5,000 for information leading to his arrest.
“We’re hoping that somebody that knows where he is at here in Manatee County will be bold enough to reach out to us and give us that information and in the meantime we are following leads, we are searching actively for him right now,” said Warren.
Anyone with information on the case is urged to call the Manatee County Sheriff’s office at 941-747-3011.