Marquis Goodwine appears inset against an image of a park where another boy died in Sanford, Fla. on July 9, 2023. (Seminole County Sheriff’s Office; screengrab via WKMG)
A Florida teenager with a history of gun crimes is now facing a murder charge for the death of another teenager who was shot and killed on the way to a Circle K earlier this month, court records show.
Marquis Goodwine, 18, stands accused of one count of murder in the second degree for the July 9 slaying in Sanford, Florida.
Lovell Brown, 18, died during the early morning hours while he was trying to go shopping with several members of his family.
Officers with the Sanford Police Department arrived to find Brown with several gunshot wounds near a park at the corner of West 25th Street and Hartwell Avenue, an affidavit for an arrest warrant obtained by Law&Crime says. First responders attempted life-saving measures on the victim, who was rushed by fire and rescue personnel to nearby HCA Lake Monroe Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Parlet Ramsay, the deceased’s mother, told police she wanted to walk to the Circle K on French Avenue to get some snacks. So one of her daughters, her son, and her 1-year-old granddaughter all headed to the store together. Soon after they began the short trip, however, a group of three or four people started walking toward the family.
Brown was walking out in front, his mother said, when an unknown man from the other group directly approached them. An altercation ensued that quickly got physical as the man wearing a hoodie, jogging pants, and slides punched Brown in the face, the affidavit says.
Ramsay said she next heard gunshots – followed by a taunt as her son lay dying: “You got what you deserved f— n—-.”
In those initial moments of panic, a boy wearing a blue hoodie began performing CPR on Brown; Ramsay would recall that the boy in blue went to high school with her son. The distraught mother then ran back to the apartment to tell her other daughter what had happened.
Brown’s death came amidst an ominous series of threats dating back to November 2022, his mother told police.
Since then, “for unknown reasons,” the anxious mom had been receiving phone calls from “friends” at the John E. Polk Correctional Facility in nearby Sanford “advising that she needed to get her son” away from the area. At first, those warnings were heeded — Brown went to stay with a sister in California for a few months.
In January, the victim returned to the Sunshine State and had been staying with friends before moving in with his other sister.
But the threats had not subsided.
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One day before the shooting, Ramsay told police that “someone threw a hard object” at her residence, the affidavit says.
Lamya Cash, the sister from California, gave her own recollection of threats her brother had recently received, the affidavit says.
Cash told police that Brown had received a text message earlier in the day “from someone that did not like him.” That message implored her brother to “come outside” but he ignored the directive – saying he wasn’t going anywhere and wasn’t worried about it.
The sister’s version of events on the night of the shooting more or less lined up with her mother’s version of events.
She added that the boy in the hoodie who performed CPR pleaded with Brown as he died: “Vel, Vel, stay with me.”
Police identified several witnesses to the shooting based on body-worn camera footage from the response on the night in question. After reviewing that footage, law enforcement realized surveillance footage from the adjacent Circle K showed several of the same people entering and leaving the store just before and after 1:00 a.m.
The boy who performed CPR was singled out by Brown’s Florida-based sister, the affidavit says. Investigators then met with him and his sister. They provided a substantially similar version of what happened that night – both of them implicating their cousin, Goodwine, in Brown’s death.
Desamial Canty told police she didn’t want her cousin to go out with them that night because he “swears” he is in a gang and she felt like something bad was going to happen, the affidavit says. She remembered encountering the family at Warley Park, including a baby in a stroller, and saw the fight break out before five or six shots were fired. Her brother, Desmario Canty, “stated that Lovell started to ‘over power’ Marquis in the fight and that was the reason Marquis used his firearm.”
Both recalled a long-running feud between the victim and the defendant. The sister said Brown had beaten Goodwine up in the past. The brother noted that his cousin had recently been in jail and that the dispute continued after he was released.
According to Seminole County court records, Goodwine was released from jail in late May. He had previously violated the terms of his probation on three gun crimes, including possession of a firearm on school property.
A warrant was issued for his arrest on July 11; he was arrested on July 18.
The defendant is currently being detained in the Seminole County Jail without bond. He is next slated to appear in court on Aug. 29.
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