Artrel Dubose came to Gainesville to attend the funeral of a family member.
But a confrontation that turned violent early in the morning of Oct. 23 left him lying on the second floor of a city-owned parking garage suffering from what would become a fatal gunshot to the head.
Police believe the gun used in the shooting, which was originally missing, may have been found near the Alachua County Courthouse Friday when a Jimmy John's deliveryman saw something shiny when he parked his bicycle, said Cpl. Angelina Valuri, Gainesville Police Department public information officer.
Further inspection showed it was a handgun buried under a pile of leaves. The .40-caliber Beretta was sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for analysis.
Roderick Harris, of Lake City, was an unknown suspect at the time of the shooting and has been found. He is now a witness to the crime, Valuri said. No charges have been filed against him.
Police arrested two men, Brandon Brashod Wilson and Deron Matthews, the morning of the shooting. Both men are from Lake City. Wilson, 20, has been charged with homicide and burglary, and Matthews, 22, has been charged with burglary.
This isn't the first time someone has been shot in the head in this particular parking garage. In November 2007, Andrew Arosemena, 23, died after he was shot in the head after the UF vs. Florida State University football game, Valuri said.
Okpara K. Nelson, of Gainesville, who was convicted of the murder in a 2009 trial, shot Arosemena in the head after he yelled out of his car for Nelson to move, said Lawrence J. Marraffino, a Gainesville attorney who represented Arosemena's mother, Patricia Kelleher, in a civil suit against the city of Gainesville about the crime.
Nelson is now serving two consecutive life sentences in state prison.
Kelleher sued the city for negligence in her son's death.
In court proceedings, records from the Alachua County Clerk of the Court's office stated Kelleher provided the following testimony:
"As parents, you never think that you will not outlive your kids. Oh, God. And you expect that - you don't expect that one of your children will die first, especially murdered. You know it's not the way it's supposed to happen. And the pain it causes is the rawest kind. And it doesn't stop, no matter how much time goes by."
A jury handed down a verdict stating the city was not guilty.
Marraffino said the city focused on the issue of how it could prevent the murder after the crime happened. He said the city should have taken a preventative approach.
Marraffino is working on another case regarding violence at the same parking garage, this one for an incident in August 2007 - just months before Arosemena was killed.
In the August case, then-26-year-old Matthew P. Johnson stepped into the garage's driving lane to allow a friend to back his car out, he said. A person got out of another vehicle and hit him hard enough to send him face first into the concrete floor.
Multiple surgeries to fix his broken facial bones racked up $87,000 in medical bills. No one was charged in the incident, he said.
Some scars remain, according to Marraffino.
The case is set to start on Nov. 7 in civil court.
Marraffino said he knew the Arosemena incident wouldn't be the last violent crime that would be committed in that parking garage.
"I said in my final argument, ‘This is going to happen again.' Little did I know that it was only going to take two weeks," he said. "And it makes me sick. It's a case where you don't want to be right."
On Oct. 23, Artrel Dubose, 30, suffered a fatal gunshot to the head in the downtown parking garage on Southwest Second Street.
