Man arrested after authorities find missing car of murdered Florida couple

FORT LAUDERDALE – Nearly four months after an elderly couple was found shot to death in their Fort Lauderdale home and their car was stolen from their driveway, police said the car thief was a man who had a relationship with one of the couple’s granddaughters.

Claudette Melvin, 85, and her husband, Major Melvin, 89, were found with a gunshot wound to the chest on March 22 by a relative who is disabled and lived with them in the 600 block of Southwest 30th Terrace, according to an arrest warrant. Investigators released photos of their red 2014 Ford Fusion and said at a news conference in April that it was imperative to find it. Little other information was released then or in the months that followed.

Although Maurice Anthony Newson, 30, of Davie, has not been charged in the murders, he was arrested in Fort Lauderdale in May on a warrant for auto theft and receiving stolen goods, according to Broward County court records.

Newson is accused of selling the car to a Wilton Manors towing company for $200 the same night the couple was found dead, the warrant says.

Newson “frequently walked around the house after the murder, ‘acting strangely’ and asking many questions about what investigators were saying about the investigation,” family members told investigators, the arrest warrant states.

Newson’s attorney did not respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday evening. He could not be reached by phone outside of business hours. Court records show Newson was released from jail on bail and pleaded not guilty in late June.

“The investigation is ongoing and detectives are working diligently to determine Newson’s involvement in the murders, if any,” said Fort Lauderdale Police Department spokesman Casey Liening. “We urge anyone with information about this incident to contact police immediately. Broward Crime Stoppers is offering a reward for any information leading to an arrest.”

Details of the filming will be announced

The Melvins’ names are almost entirely redacted in the arrest warrant, even though it is clear that they are the victims and the warrant is related to their case.

Claudette Melvin was found lying on her back near the dining room table with a gunshot wound to her left breast and a 9mm shell casing near her foot, the warrant states. Major Melvin was found lying on his stomach in the living room with a 9mm shell casing in his shirt near his stomach.

Investigators found no weapons in the home, and family members said the couple’s only car key was missing from a key rack in the kitchen, the search warrant said.

The relative who lived with the couple and whose name is redacted in the warrant told investigators he was sleeping in his room watching television and when he came out he found a body lying on the floor, the warrant says. The relative called his sister and told her to come to the house because of an “emergency, emergency.”

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The detective who questioned him asked him why he didn’t call 911, and he said, “Nobody taught me how to call 911,” the warrant says. He said he didn’t hear any gunshots that night.

Surveillance cameras at the home showed a “suspicious vehicle,” a dark four-door sedan, arriving shortly before 1 a.m. on March 22. Someone got out of the car, appeared to reach into the back seat and then walked toward the house, the warrant said.

Video showed the person returning to the car shortly after 1 a.m. and driving away north on Southwest 30th Terrace. Shortly before 3:30 a.m., the Melvins’ car’s headlights came on in the driveway, video showed, and they left the area north on Southwest 30th Terrace, according to the warrant.

License plate readers showed the car traveling north on Florida’s Turnpike near Atlantic Boulevard in Pompano Beach just before 4 a.m. It was parked at the Cypress Creek Tri-Rail station in Fort Lauderdale and sat there unmoved until about 9 p.m., when the tow truck driver picked it up, the warrant says.

The detective who issued the arrest warrant for Newson wrote that there was “reasonable cause to believe that the same suspects were involved in the murder, the theft of the victim’s vehicle, and the theft of the vehicle north on the Florida Turnpike in Broward County.”

Witness saw car at tow yard

A witness flagged down a Fort Lauderdale police officer on April 4 and said that “the red vehicle seen all over the news” was parked at a towing business in the 600 block of West Oakland Park Boulevard, the warrant states.

Officers requested Broward County Sheriff’s Office personnel, who flew in a helicopter for a separate incident, to check the car. Sheriff’s Office personnel found it had the same damage and bumper sticker as the car in the wanted notice Fort Lauderdale police had previously issued.

Investigators interviewed a driver for the towing company, who said his boss sent him a text message about 6:30 p.m. on March 22, talking about a 2012 Ford Fusion for sale. The driver met with a man he later identified in a photo lineup as Newson to buy the car for $200, the warrant said.

On May 23, detectives from the Fort Lauderdale Police Department’s Fugitive Unit arrested Newson at his workplace at a retail store where he works as a security guard and took him to headquarters for registration, a police report said.

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