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He was shot, then detectives say he became a vigilante

Ice cream truck driver Michael Keetley is accused of shooting six people in 2010. Now he's going on trial.
Credit: WTSP
This was the ice cream truck Michael Keetley worked out of when he was shot in January 2010.

RUSKIN, Fla. — Jury selection began Monday in the Michael Keetley trial. 

Keetley was an ice cream truck driver, who is accused of murdering two brothers and shooting four other people on Thanksgiving, 2010 in Ruskin.

Hillsborough County detectives say he was motivated to become a vigilante after he was shot in January of that same year.

Credit: Michael Keetley
Ice cream truck driver Michael Keetley was shot several times in a robbery over $12 in Ruskin.

Keetley was ambushed off Old U.S. Highway 41. 

He was shot five times by two masked men, and the inside of his ice cream truck was left covered in blood. 

Police said he managed to drive down the road and flag down a woman who was one of his regular customers. It turned out he had been shot over just $12

Keetley spoke with 10News just a couple of weeks after the shooting.

"If they were so brazen to shoot me like this over $12, they're going to just kill anybody. They don't care now. They don't care,” Keetley said.

Flash forward 10 months to Thanksgiving of 2010. 

Detectives say Keetley was obsessed with finding a man named Creeper and shot six men that morning to get revenge. But the men had nothing to do with shooting Keetley months earlier, according to investigators.

Brothers Sergio and Juan Guitran died.

Credit: WTSP
Brothers Sergio and Juan Guitran were murdered on Thanksgiving in 2010.

One of the four others who were shot was their cousin, Richard Cantu.

10News was there as Cantu went through rehab. The bullet had passed through the left side of his brain, and the 31-year-old father of two young children had to re-learn how to walk, talk and and eat. 

"It's amazing to see him doing what he is now considering that he did have a gunshot wound to the head. It's amazing. There's no words to express how we feel right now," his brother Frankie told 10News at the time.

Credit: WTSP
Richard Cantu survived a shooting in Ruskin on Thanksgiving 2010. A bullet went through the left side of his brain.

In January 2011, Keetley pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and four counts of attempted first-degree murder.

That summer, the Hillsborough County State Attorney released more than 900 pages of court documents detailing Keetley’s own investigation and painted a picture of man looking for revenge. 

According to the documents, Keetley took his parents’ dark blue van to be repainted after the shooting. An ex-girlfriend said he bought a gun at a Sarasota gun show, and he wanted to watch old movies by Charles Bronson on vigilante justice like Death Wish

Keetley denied having anything to do with the shooting.

Credit: Hillsborough County Jail
This is Michael Keetley's mug shot after his arrest in 2010.

A year and a half after Keetley was shot in the ice cream truck, no one had been arrested for that crime – but Keetley has been in jail waiting to stand trial.

There have been several issues that have kept the case from moving faster through the court system. A year ago, the state attorney decided not to pursue the death penalty in the case.

RELATED: Ice cream truck driver accused of murdering two in 2010 could be released on bond

RELATED: Ice cream truck driver talks about shooting

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