Robert Mell sat at the top of the bed in a house on East Riviera Boulevard, just north of Indialantic. Scott Hyatt sat on an adjacent folding chair. Without warning, a man burst into the bedroom donning a shiny red-and-gold mask and armed with a gun.
“He said, ‘give me the (expletive) pills,’” Mell told Brevard County Sheriff’s Agent Nicholas Walker. When Mell said he had no pills, the intruder shot him three times.
Mell survived, but Hyatt wasn’t so fortunate. The gunman shot him in the head after catching him in a lie.
Based on Mell’s voice recognition and a photo lineup, Sheriff’s deputies arrested Joseph Milman on Oct. 22, 2014, three days after the shootings. A grand jury indicted him on first-degree felony murder. The state also charged Milman with attempted first-degree felony murder, robbery with a firearm and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. His trial begins Aug. 7.
In addition, sheriff’s agents arrested Justin Howard, who provided Milman with the gun, one of several owned by his mother. Charges against Howard included first-degree felony murder, attempted felony murder and robbery with a firearm. Howard will be tried in November.
Mell, now 51, was no saint, according to depositions and interviews. Elvira Hull, also known as Grandma, owned a house on Avenida De La Vista, not far from East Riviera, where Hyatt and others lived for a time. Hull warned Hyatt to stay away from Mell’s place because he was trouble. She accused him of stealing items from her house and “not being a very nice person.”
Howard’s then 15 year-old girlfriend, also charged with evidence tampering in the case, said Mell talked dirty. “Sexual stuff,” she said in her deposition. “He’s a pretty weird guy.” He also stole cigarette money, the teen said. Asked about his reputation, she said he’s a crack head that no one really trusted.
Jeremy Morelli, a friend of the victims and the suspects, saw Hyatt and Mell shooting up crushed pills hours before the incident. “I’m scared to death of needles and that’s what they were doing. They were both in Bobby’s bedroom shooting up.”
Yet during his deposition, Morelli said Milman never had a bad word for Hyatt or Mell.
Walker interviewed Mell on Oct. 23, 2014 from his hospital room in the trauma unit of Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, where he recovered from wounds to his arm and chest. Medical staff said Mell was in discomfort and pain but lucid enough to talk.
Mell said after Milman shot him, he demanded Hyatt turn over the Dilaudid pills he just refilled. Hyatt said the pills were in the truck in the driveway. Milman said “they better be.” Hyatt stood up to leave the bedroom when Milman noticed the bulge in his front pocket pants.
“You’re f-ing lying,” Milman said. That’s when he shot Hyatt, Mell recounted. He dragged the dead man’s body across the floor, reached into his pants pocket and took the bottle of pills.
Mell pleaded “don’t kill me, man. You got the pills. Just don’t kill me.”
Instead, Milman gave Mell three pills and said “you’re going to need them” and ran out of the house.
Seriously injured, Mell struggled to neighbor Patrick Marshall’s house. Marshall told a sheriff’s agent he was watching football when he heard three loud knocks at his front door. He looked out the window and saw Mell “going down.” He called 911 for an ambulance.
The episode which led to the robbery and shooting may have begun on Oct. 18, the day before, when Milman grew impatient waiting for Mell to bring him some marijuana. At the time, Mell was in Malabar waiting for Hyatt. Milman turned from impatient to irritated.
“They’re not going to do nothing for us. I think they’re just bull-ing,” Milman said, according to Morelli’s deposition.
