Julio Foolio Murder Case: Ambush, Charges, and Life Sentences

The Julio Foolio murder case ended in June 2026 with four men sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the first-degree murder of the Jacksonville rapper, and a fifth defendant sentenced to 15 years for manslaughter. Charles Jones, who performed as Julio Foolio, was 26 when he was ambushed in a Tampa hotel parking lot on June 23, 2024, while celebrating his birthday. Prosecutors in Hillsborough County proved that a group of men tied to a rival Jacksonville gang traveled across the state, tracked him through the night, and opened fire as he tried to leave.

How the Ambush Happened

Jones had spent the night of June 22, 2024, at Tampa nightclubs. Police had earlier asked him to leave an Airbnb because his party exceeded occupancy limits, so he moved to a cluster of hotels on McKinley Drive near the University of South Florida.¹

At about 4:38 a.m., three armed men got out of a vehicle in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn and opened fire on two cars associated with Jones. Witnesses described two bursts of gunfire. Jones tried to drive away, was struck, and died at the scene. Three other people were hospitalized.²³

Who Was Charged

Five people from Jacksonville were charged. Prosecutors said planning began at least two weeks before the shooting and that the group traveled to Tampa for the sole purpose of finding and killing Jones.⁴

Rashad Murphy, 32, was identified as one of the three gunmen. He was briefly stopped in Gwinnett County, Georgia, on misdemeanor charges days after the killing and released, then arrested by a SWAT team in Jacksonville on July 30, 2024, after a standoff.⁵

Davion Murphy, 29, was also alleged to be a gunman. He evaded capture for roughly six months before a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office SWAT team and U.S. Marshals arrested him at a Jacksonville apartment on January 6, 2025.⁶

Sean Gathright, 20, was named as the third gunman. Days after the murder, police stopped a vehicle he was driving and recovered a Glock 9mm pistol, ammunition, magazines, and firearm parts. He was arrested in Jacksonville on July 27, 2024.⁵

Isaiah Chance, 23, was charged as a scout who tracked Jones’s movements alongside his girlfriend, Alicia Andrews, 23. Andrews was accused of using her personal cellphone and vehicle to help the group follow Jones without being spotted. Both were arrested the same day as Gathright.⁷

What the Evidence Showed

Prosecutors argued the defendants worked as two teams: a surveillance team of Chance and Andrews in a silver Chevrolet Cruze, and an assault team of three masked gunmen arriving in a black Chevrolet Impala.⁸

License plate readers confirmed the two vehicles traveled together from Jacksonville to Tampa. Cell phone location data and cell site records mapped the defendants’ movements between the two cities and at the scene. A phone found in the Cruze had a maps application running and contained Airbnb booking records, images of rifles, and social media content. Chance’s Cash App account had paid for a Tampa Airbnb on June 22, 2024, which prosecutors called a staging area.⁹

Surveillance footage from hotel cameras, traffic pole cameras, and a Tesla’s Sentry Mode placed the suspects’ vehicles at the same locations Jones visited that night, including the Teasers nightclub and Truth 18. At the Holiday Inn, cameras captured the Cruze driving past Jones’s parked cars twice, then making a U-turn to establish sight lines before the gunmen emerged from the Impala.⁸

Forensic work connected Gathright to the weapons. DNA analysis on tape from a recovered rifle identified him as a major contributor. Ballistic testing also linked the firearms used in the Tampa murder to an October 2023 attempt on Jones’s life in Jacksonville, when attackers fired roughly 16 rounds of .223-caliber rifle ammunition at his car. Spent casings recovered during Gathright’s traffic stop matched that earlier shooting.¹⁰⁹

Defense attorneys pushed back hard. Gathright’s lawyer called him a “puzzle piece that doesn’t fit,” arguing detectives never collected his phone, that the cell tower mapping was unreliable, and that the rifles recovered from him did not match the weapon shapes visible in surveillance footage. Davion Murphy’s defense stressed the absence of DNA, texts, or social media tying him to the shooting, and argued he could not be the third gunman because surveillance showed a right-handed shooter and he is left-handed. Rashad Murphy’s team conceded he had lied to detectives about being in Tampa, but said he did so out of fear, not guilt.¹¹

Verdicts and Sentences

Alicia Andrews

Andrews was tried separately and first, in October 2025, before Hillsborough County Judge Michelle Sisco. She testified that she believed the Tampa trip was for a reconciliation with Chance and denied knowing about any murder plot. The jury acquitted her of conspiracy to commit murder but convicted her of the lesser charge of manslaughter.⁸

Her sentencing was delayed after her defense moved to remove Judge Sisco, alleging pervasive bias. The defense said Sisco had shown “overt hostility toward the defense,” interrupted counsel, refused sidebars, laughed at defense attorneys, and visibly prompted the prosecution during witness examination. At one point, Sisco told a defense attorney to “stop right now because you’ve been making faces throughout this entire trial.” The Second District Court of Appeal ordered Sisco removed, and Judge Kimberly Fernandez took over in January 2026.¹²

On May 22, 2026, Fernandez denied a defense motion to overturn the conviction and sentenced Andrews to 15 years in prison. Her attorneys said they planned to appeal.¹³

Chance, Gathright, and the Two Murphys

The four remaining defendants were tried together after a judge denied motions to sever the cases in March 2026. Jury selection began April 8, 2026, drawing from about 250 candidates. Death penalty specialist Scott Harmon led the prosecution with assistant state attorneys Michelle Doherty and Anna Ismer.¹⁴

On May 7, 2026, the jury found all four guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Gathright and both Murphys were also convicted on attempted murder counts tied to the three people wounded in the parking lot.¹⁵

Prosecutors sought the death penalty. On May 15, 2026, the jury recommended life in prison without parole for all four men.¹⁶ Judge Sisco formally imposed those sentences on June 22, 2026, two years to the day after the shooting.¹⁷

The Gang Feud Behind It

Prosecutors framed the killing as the product of a roughly decade-long feud between rival Jacksonville gangs. Jones was associated with 6 Block. The men who traveled to Tampa were tied to ATK, short for “Ace’s Top Killers” and named after rapper Yungeen Ace, and its allied group known as 1200. Dozens of killings on both sides had preceded Jones’s death, and the rivalry was fueled by drill rap tracks in which members taunted one another.¹⁸

An early flashpoint was a 2018 mass shooting at the St. Johns Town Center in Jacksonville that killed three people, including 18-year-old Royale Smith, and wounded Yungeen Ace. Several 6 Block members were killed in the years that followed, including Lawrence Davis in 2018 and Adrian McKinzie and Julian House in 2023. Jones himself was grazed by a bullet during a November 2021 shootout in Jacksonville’s Riverside neighborhood, and the October 2023 attempt on his car preceded the successful ambush the following June.¹⁸¹⁹

Prosecutors also pointed to social media in the hours after the shooting. Rashad Murphy’s Instagram carried posts with laughing emojis. Chance posted a photo of football coach Bill Belichick with hands-up emojis less than two hours later. Days after the killing, a rival gang released a music video titled “Foolio Dead.”¹¹⁴

Who Julio Foolio Was

Charles Jones grew up in Jacksonville and said he had lost more than ten friends to gun violence before he turned 20. He released his debut album, 6toven, in 2018 and put out five full-length projects over the next five years, including Murda Man, Im a Superstar, and 2023’s Final Destination, citing Drake and Eminem as influences.²⁰

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office identified him as an affiliate of KTA, which the department described as a violent criminal organization.¹⁹ He was 26 when he was killed in Tampa, marking one of the most prominent deaths in the Jacksonville gang conflict that ran through his music and, prosecutors argued, brought his killers across the state to find him.

1
Fox 13 News. Timeline: Julio Foolio Deadly Shooting in Tampa
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Fox 13 News. 1 Dead, 3 Hospitalized After Shooting at Tampa Holiday Inn Near USF
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NBC News. Rapper Foolio Killed in Tampa Shooting
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Action News Jax. Prosecutors Detail Deadly Gang War as Trial of Julio Foolio’s Murder Begins
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Jacksonville.com. Documents Reveal New Details in Foolio Murder
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JAMN 107.5. Julio Foolio Murder Suspect Captured After Spending 6 Months on the Run
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Fox 13 News. Julio Foolio Murder: First of Five Suspects Heads to Trial
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Court TV. FL v. Alicia Andrews: Rapper Ambush Murder Trial
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Court TV. FL v. Isaiah Chance, Sean Gathright Et Al: Julio Foolio Murder Trial
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News4Jax. Julio Foolio Murder Suspect Linked to Another Attempt to Kill the Rapper
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News4Jax. Closing Arguments Begin in Trial of 4 Men Accused in Murder of Julio Foolio
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Court TV. New Judge to Oversee Alicia Andrews Sentencing After Successful Appeal
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Court TV. “He Was Not Disposable”: Alicia Andrews Sentenced in Murder of Julio Foolio
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Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office. Jury Recommends Life Sentences for Four Defendants in Julio Foolio Murder Trial
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WFLA. Closing Arguments Wrap in Julio Foolio Murder Trial as Jury Begins Deliberations
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News4Jax. Jury Recommends Life Sentence Without Parole for 4 Men Guilty in Killing of Julio Foolio
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Fox 13 News. Julio Foolio Murder: Four Men Sentenced to Life in Prison in Tampa Ambush
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News4Jax. Shooting That Killed 7-Year-Old Connected to Warring Jacksonville Gangs
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News4Jax. Jacksonville Rapper Julio Foolio Arrested by JSO
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AllMusic. Foolio