Horrible news today out of Auburndale, Florida:
A single Florida father was robbed and then fatally shot after a woman he met on a dating website set him up to be robbed.
According to The Associated Press, Hilarie met Hailey Bustos on the website PlentyOfFish, eventually going on a bowling date with her.
A few hours later, the two went back to his apartment, where investigators believe she was looking the place over, gauging its potential to be robbed.
Later that evening, Bustos texted Hilarie with the message: “I had a good time and would like to see you again.”
The next night, Bustos returned to Hilarie’s house in Auburndale… but this time she arrived with three men by her side.
Authorities say Bustos, Andre Warner, Gary Gray and Joshua Ellington knocked on Hilarie’s door and forced their way inside with a gun when he answered.
Based on the arrest report, obtained by The AP, Bustos told police the following:
“Hilarie was begging for his life, he was not putting up any kind of fight and was telling them that he had a 5-year-old daughter.”
Nevertheless:
During the robbery, the 27-year old Hilarie was shot in the head with a .38-caliber gun.
While he bled to death on the kitchen floor, the group proceeded to steal an Xbox console, video games, three flat-screen TVs, an iPhone, a wallet and other items.
Authorities confirmed to The Washington Post that Bustos was paid $ 50 in cash for her role in the robbery.
She’s 18 years old.
Hilarie worked as a laborer and aspiring boxer and left behind his toddler daughter, LaJaya
She is five years old.
“You couldn’t find a better dad,” Hilarie’s close friend Jennifer Meyer tells Us Weekly, adding:
“Adam’s life began and ended with his baby girl. Everything he did revolved around his daughter, that little princess was the light of his life.”
Does LaJaya have any idea what happened to her dad?
Not really.
“She just knows daddy is with Jesus,” Meyer says.
Bustos, Warner, Gray and Ellington were arrested and charged with first-degree murder, armed robbery and conspiracy to commit murder.
Meyer, meanwhile, set up a GoFundMe page to help raise money for LaJaya and to help pay for Hilarie’s funeral expenses.
You can click on the link above to donate whatever you can.
We strongly encourage readers to do so.
What a sad and incomprehensible story.