ORLANDO, Fla. — A woman reportedly threatened to get her "man" when her Burger King order took too long. Deputies say he soon showed up and shot a young employee to death.
Ashley Mason, 31, was arrested Wednesday on charges of principal to first-degree murder and aggravated assault with a firearm.
Mason was in the restaurant's drive-thru line Aug. 1 when its manager noticed her becoming angry over the slow service, the arrest affidavit reads. She reportedly got out of her car and started yelling, threatening to bring her husband to the restaurant.
She was refunded $40 and asked to leave in an attempt to appease her.
Instead, deputies say Mason was seen in the parking lot for about five minutes before leaving. Not long after, Mason returned along with another vehicle, a white work truck driven by 37-year-old Kelvis Rodriguez Tormes. Tormes reportedly started fighting with the Burger King employee, 22-year-old Desmond Armond Joshua Jr., and told him, "You got two seconds before I shoot you."
The restaurant manager said he heard a gunshot, and Joshua fell to the ground. The young adult started working there two days prior, the arrest report states.
Mason and Tormes took off but eventually were arrested at home.
During an interview with investigators, Mason claimed she was on the phone with her husband while in the drive-thru and told the workers he would come to "talk to them." She reportedly said she then left Burger King and went back home to find her husband's work truck gone.
Mason told investigators she returned to the restaurant where she found her husband fighting with Joshua, according to the arrest report. She allegedly saw a gun in the truck, grabbed it but gave it to her husband who was said to have told her, "Give me the fire."
She, too, reportedly claimed during the incident that Joshua jumped over the hood of her car as she tried to leave. Moments later, she heard the gunfire.
Surveillance video from another restaurant nearby seemed to disprove a part of her story. It showed Mason sitting in its parking lot after she left the Burger King; she didn't return home, according to the arrest report.
Deputies say she, too, armed herself with the gun and pointed it toward the fight between Tormes and Joshua. "Bust him if he touches me," Tormes allegedly said. And when he asked for the gun, she handed it over, deputies said.
Tormes is charged with first-degree murder with a firearm, destruction of evidence and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Jail records show Mason remains in the Orange County jail.
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