Two hours after shooting and killing two people and abducting the office manager at Summer Place Villas on Tuesday, a Gainesville man was taken into custody in another state, Gainesville Police said.
Cedric Tremaine Plummer
Police said Cedric Tremaine Plummer, 23, shot two people in the leasing office of Summer Place Villas apartment complex, located at 3316 SW 41st Place, before fleeing to Lowndes County, Georgia, where he was arrested. He was found driving north on Interstate 75 at about 3:30 p.m. with a gun and the office manager — at least an hour and a half’s drive from Gainesville.
Police identified the two employees killed as 28-year-old Jude Onyegbulam Osuji, Jr. and 61-year-old Robert Earl Brumbaugh.
Police are unsure if the gun found was used in the shooting, GPD spokesperson Officer Ben Tobias said. Officers responded to a call at the apartment at about 1:30 p.m. and found a bullet hole in window and two bodies, Tobias said.
Tobias said police used witness accounts and electronic communications to figure out who the suspect was. Within about two hours from when GPD started investigating, Georgia law enforcement had the suspect within custody and had recovered a woman who was taken by the shooter.
The shooter, who was a resident of the complex, had taken office manager Hailey Roberts, 19, against her will, said Roberts’ boyfriend, Troy Matthews, 22. He received a call at about 2:30 p.m. at his job at Zaxby’s. He went to the scene and was told she was missing.
Less than an hour later, Matthews and friends and family of Roberts, who were gathered at the entrance of the apartment’s driveway, learned that she had been found by police. They cheered, cried and hugged in front of the crime scene tape blocking off the parking lot.
“She’s going to come home safe,” Matthews said. “That’s all that matters.”
A detective took Roberts’ parents to Georgia to pick up their daughter. Police are still investigating why she was taken, Tobias said.
Police closed Southwest 41st Place for about three hours and told residents to avoid leaving shelter while they tried to locate the shooter.
Some UF students in the area were concerned UF Public Safety didn’t share an alert for the shooting, which happened about a mile from campus. UF spokesperson Steve Orlando said alerts are sent out when the incident happens less than 1,000 feet from campus.
Dillon Edens, a UF biology sophomore passed the crime scene on their way to Dollar General.
“It would be nice to know to take some precautions,” Edens, 19, said.
James Workman, 60, lives in the apartment complex and heard the news about the shooting from police who asked him to leave his apartment during the investigation. He watched detectives go in and out of the leasing office and worried about Roberts, who he said was a “sweetheart.”
The apartment manager declined to comment.
Residents who could not drive on the street gathered in the parking lot of Dollar General. They were shocked to see patrol cars in their neighborhood. Tobias said crime like this is uncommon for the area.
“When I heard the call go out, I said to myself, ‘This is too weird in this area to be a call,’” Tobias said. “Unfortunately, it was a real call.”
Contact Meryl Kornfield at mkornfield@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter at @merylkornfield.
Summer place Apartments, located at 3361 SW 41 Place. Two people are dead after an apparent shooting.
