GUILTY FL - Glendora Johnson, 54, & Lester Carter, 42, shot to death, Ocala, 13 March 2013

OCALA --

Investigators are trying to figure out why two people were shot dead at a Marion County hotel.

The shooting happened Tuesday night at the Vacation Host Inn on South Pine Avenue in Ocala.

Investigators said there was some sort of disturbance between a group of people at the hotel. Later on, deputies said 37-year-old Kelvin Coleman went to the second floor balcony of the hotel where he ran into two employees and shot both of them.

Investigators identified one of the victims as 42-year-old Lester Carter, who worked at the hotel for almost a year. The identity of the second victim, a 54-year-old woman, has not been released pending next of kin notification. Investigators said she had worked at the hotel since 2004.

Deputies said the victims had nothing to do with the previous disturbance.

After the shooting, Coleman fled but was later caught and arrested in Silver Springs Shores. He's facing several charges, including two counts of first-degree murder.

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Jury selection for Kelvin Coleman’s first-degree murder trial is slated for May 16.

Coleman, 40, is accused of killing two Vacation Inn Motel employees in a March 2013 shooting...

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On Tuesday, through opening statements by Roberts and Assistant State Attorney Amy Berndt, and through testimony from the first of the state's witnesses, the jury began to consider exactly what did happened at the Vacation Host Inn on March 12, 2013...

The first person to testify following opening statements Tuesday was Rebecca Crew, who said she was working nights at the motel's front desk at the time. She told the jury she had asked the Coleman's son not to ride his bike near the floor-to-ceiling windows, out of concern for his safety and for motel rules, earlier in the day...

White also took the stand... He said he came home that day around 5:30 p.m. from his job in Gainesville and had a brief altercation with Kelvin Coleman. White said he didn't know about the earlier incident over the bike at that point...

White testified that Carter and Johnson came over to chat later that night. He said the two workers were standing in the breezeway. White said he was in the doorway and that Crew was inside the room helping her daughter with homework. Then, suddenly, both Crew and White testified in separate statements, gunshots rang out.

“As it happened, Lester (Carter) kind of fell away from the wall,” White said. “As I peeked around the wall, I saw Mr. Coleman coming at us with a gun.”

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Circuit Judge Robert Hodges on Wednesday declared a mistrial in the case against first-degree double-murder defendant Kelvin Lee Coleman.

Coleman’s attorneys made the motion after Coleman’s mother, Shirley Brown, told the jury that her son had previously been in prison. She made the statement, unprompted, while testifying as a witnesses for the state.


Hodges granted the motion around 11 a.m., terminating what was scheduled to be a weeklong trial. He arranged for a hearing in July to determine a new trial date, as Coleman waived his right to a new trial within 90 days.

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The State Attorney's Office is pursuing a contempt charge against the mother of a murder defendant whose unprompted comment in front of a jury last month led to a mistrial.

Shirley Brown, while testifying as a witness during the first-degree murder trial of her son Kelvin Lee Coleman, indicated that Coleman had previously spent time in prison. Out of concern the revelation might color the jury's opinion of Coleman, Circuit

Judge Robert Hodges declared a mistrial almost immediately after Brown made the statement.

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The selection of 12 jurors and two alternates will continue Tuesday morning, 5th Circuit Judge Robert Hodges said.

When the jury is picked, members will hear evidence presented by the State in favor of the death penalty and by the defense in favor of life in prison without parole. If the group decides Coleman, 41, should be executed, its decision must be a unanimous one.

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