ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — For ten years the Cantu family has waited for closure. Now, as Michael Keetley’s murder trial begins this week in Hillsborough County, they hope to finally see justice for what happened on Thanksgiving day, 2010.
“It’s hard to move on when you’ve got an ongoing trial for ten years,” said Frankie Cantu, whose brother Richard survived a gunshot to the head that day and whose cousins, Sergio and Juan Guitran, were killed. “It just brings back the memories from ten years ago, we’re trying to erase – but you know you can never erase those memories. Ever. Those are scarred.”
Detectives say Keetley was obsessed with finding a man who had shot and robbed him for $12 earlier in 2010. Court documents allege Keetley shot six men on Thanksgiving morning to get revenge. But the men he shot had nothing to do with shooting Keetley months earlier, according to investigators.
Now, the family is forced to relive the tragedy all over again as Keetley gets his day in court.
“Not only my own brother but my cousins, who were murdered. It’s tough to move on from that situation ten years later when the trial is just now happening,” Frankie said on Wednesday.
“I see it every day, and it hurts because I see my brother, who used to be lively, who used to be out and about all the time, doing things, whatever he wanted to do and now he’s housebound most of the time because he can’t drive. He can’t do things he used to, so I see it every day,” he added. “It’s hard, it’s hard for him because he now has to live it all over again. We all have to relive it all over again. To see him go testify against Michael Keetley, to see that happen and see his face, who I never want to see ever again because that’s the person who destroyed our family.”
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