Son's Unsolved Murder Case Haunts Former BSO Sergeant
LAUDERDALE LAKES (CBS4) - Marquel McCormes, known as "Quel" to his friends, was a popular, well-liked guy and by all accounts had no real enemies. But in the early morning hours of September 1st, he was gunned down; the sound of of that fatal gunshot was captured on surveillance video.
He was hit in the back while running into a friend's house in Lauderdale Lakes just before 4 a.m.
"He had seen something that scared him," said BSO Homicide Detective Shane Schroeder, "or maybe somebody was trying to rob him or he recognized somebody or he saw a person with the gun and he ran inside the residence. What ever it was, it scared him."
Quel's father Bernard McCormes is a retired BSO Sergeant. He painfully recalled being woken up early in the morning.
"Someone called me, called from his phone about 4:30 in the morning and woke me up and said your son had passed out," recalled McCormes.
He said when he got the call that something was wrong, no one even realized he had been shot until he got to the hospital.
"I went to the hospital and I see the bullet hole in my son's back," said McCormes, "that sticks with me. That picture cannot get away from me. I went to the hospital thinking he had passed out, I get to the hospital and he had been killed."
Investigators said Quel was at Club FME in Lauderdale Lakes before he was shot. Detectives said no one reported any run-ins or trouble. They're trying to figure out why someone would kill him.
"It's potentially mistaken identity, maybe a robbery, those are the angles we are looking at right now," said Det. Schroeder.
With his son murdered and no one under arrest, Quel's dad is hoping for answers.
"As a father you want to be there to protect your kid, no matter how old they are," said McCormes. "I wasn't there. And for him to be shot in his back like, that, that's something that's going to stick with me."
If you have any information on the murder, call Broward Crimestoppers at 954-493-TIPS.
