ESCAMBIA COUNTY, FLORIDA: Police discovered text messages purportedly showing the mother of a man charged with murder in the Florida panhandle plotting the shooting death of a Home Depot employee. She is also in jail now.
The Escambia County Sheriff's Office detained Keith Agee, 20, on Friday in the late afternoon in connection to the fatal shooting of Brooklyn Sims, 18, at the home improvement store on Davis Highway in Pensacola earlier that day.
Police did not disclose Agee and Sims' relationship. According to Pensacola news outlet WEAR, the two have a 2-year-old daughter together.
Who is Keith Agee?
Keith, 20, had previously been detained in Mobile, Alabama, on three third-degree domestic violence charges. On April 14, 2022, he was also accused of third-degree domestic violence in Mobile. Each case was dismissed, as reported by Fox News.
Who is Sheila Agee?
Sheila Agee, Keith's mother, was involved in organizing the targeted attack, the sheriff's office disclosed Monday night. Sheila is 50 years old.
The ECSO wrote on Facebook, "According to text messages, it's clear that Keith Agee's mother, Sheila Agee, knew and participated in the plan to kill Brooklyn Sims. Additionally, text messages between mother and son highlight the mother's involvement in helping locate the victim."
According to the department, the mother and son exchanged the alleged texts just prior to Sims being shot and killed. The department posted the texts on its Facebook page.
What are the charges against Sheila and Keith Agee?
Sheila has been charged with principal to first-degree premeditated murder, and Keith was charged with homicide.
Sheriff Chip Simmons said via Facebook, "The murder itself is unbelievable, but to know the mother knew about it and helped coordinate it is incomprehensible."
Police discover chilling texts
The Escambia County Sheriff's Office released the conversation between the two, which uses violent language.
In one of the texts before the crime, Sheila asks Keith not to tell "nanny" as she will "try and talk you out of it." Keith responds that he will "just say I gotta go to the dentist."
Sheila then offers to send him the target's address so that he doesn't have to do the killing in front of her daughter. "Hold up let me get it erase the texts cause I don't want nobody to know I was texting you stupid ass," she says in a later text.
In one of her final texts to her son that day, she says, "Do whatever you want to do. It don't affect me either f**king way."