Google and a smartphone helped authorities ID Keesler Air Force Base shooting suspect
Authorities used time and location-based tracking information from a smartphone to help identify an Arkansas man as a suspect in a shooting at Keesler Air Force Base last year, according to a federal criminal complaint filed in federal court in Gulfport.
A search warrant served to Google LLC revealed the owner of a smartphone device at the scene of the Oct. 6, 2020, shooting. That along with witness information led to the identity of Victor Cody Rosillo, 26, of Greenbriar, Arkansas, as a suspect.
Rosillo was jailed in the Stone County jail in September on a federal criminal complaint charging him with assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to do bodily harm.
The investigation began after Biloxi police responded to an 8:39 a.m. report of a drive-by shooting near the Keesler Medical Center emergency room.
Police spoke to military security at the scene and learned four federal maintenance workers called to report being shot at by a man in a black 2015 Nissan Sentra at the intersection of Kensington Drive and Bayview Avenue, the complaint says.
No one was injured.
One of the maintenance workers told police he was outside near the ER when he heard “tires screeching” and saw the black car stop near the intersection before a man, later identified as Rosillo, got out and shouted at the workers to find out what they were looking at.
A couple of minutes later, the witnesses said they heard what sounded like gunshots and saw the suspect firing a gun out of the car window in the direction of the workers.
Biloxi police reviewed camera footage from two homes on Kensington Drive that also showed the same black Nissan Sentra with chrome tires, tinted windows and no tag speeding in the area at the time of the shooting.
In addition, two witnesses identified Rosillo as a suspect in a photo lineup, records say.
FBI agents later interviewed Rosillo at his Arkansas home and learned he and his wife had taken off on an apparent drug-fueled trip from Arkansas in September, records said.
Rosillo said he left their home with an ounce of methamphetamine, the anti-anxiety medication Xanax, a 9 mm handgun, and $10,000 in cash, and the two traveled from Arkansas to Oklahoma.
Rosillo said couldn’t remember all the details of the trip due to the drugs, the complaint said, but he did remember he and his wife stayed at a motel on the Mississippi or Florida coast along the way.
It turned out the couple had stayed in South Mississippi.
In the interview, the complaints said, Rosillo admitted firing the 9 mm handgun out of the window of the couple’s car but said he wasn’t aiming at the maintenance workers.
Rosillo said he tossed the gun out of a car a window a couple of days later when he and his wife spotted a police car behind them.
Rosillo described the gun as being “cheap” and said, “someone threw it to me for a sack” of drugs.
Biloxi police also recovered a couple of the 9 mm shell cases on Kensington Avenue.
Rosillo remains jailed pending an indictment. The charge carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.
This story was originally published September 23, 2021 at 2:48 PM.
