Joshua Miller, left, allegedly killed Joseph Beck, right, with sunglasses, while pistol whipping him after a dispute of a pool pump outside a home in St. Cloud, Florida. (Miller: Osceola County Jail; Beck: GoFundMe)
A Florida man is facing a murder charge after he shot and killed his friend during an argument over a pool pump, cops say.
Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez told reporters at a press conference that on Saturday afternoon, 28-year-old Joshua Miller went up to the victim’s car parked in the driveway of a St. Cloud home, kicked the door and opened the door.
Miller yelled repeatedly to the victim, 29-year-old Joseph Beck, “Where’s my pool pump?!,” according to Lopez. Miller then allegedly started striking Beck with a gun. During the pistol whipping, the gun went off and struck Beck in the torso, Lopez said. The suspect then ran away. Paramedics responded and transported Beck to the hospital where doctors pronounced him dead.
Lopez said Miller ran into a wooded area and deputies later arrested him at a nearby home early Sunday morning. Miller faces charges of felony murder and burglary of conveyance. It’s unclear if Miller meant for the gun to go off.
“That’s not for me to decide,” Lopez said. “There’s a lot of different possibilities that could have happened during this incident, but the moral of this story is don’t pistol whip somebody. This isn’t a mobster movie or Grand Theft Auto or a video game. This is real life and if you don’t know how to properly handle a firearm, you shouldn’t be holding one, especially beating someone with it.”
Home surveillance video captured the shooting and Miller’s mother identified her son as the suspect, an arrest affidavit said.
Beck’s ex-wife Brittany Harrell, who remained good friends with him after their divorce, told Orlando Fox affiliate WOFL that Beck and Miller were hanging out looking at photos of their children just days before the shooting.
“It just doesn’t make any sense to me,” she said.
Beck was a father of three children ages 9, 5 and 6, according to a GoFundMe.
Miller has an “extensive” criminal history, Lopez said. Cops took him to the Osceola County Jail where he remains without bond.
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