The man who Osceola County Sheriff’s detectives say shot and killed another man and a father of three Saturday remains in the Osceola County Jail held on no bond.
Joshua Michael Alan Miller, who turned 29 on Wednesday, was arrested Sunday morning at a St. Cloud home in the area of Nolte Road and Michigan Avenue after about a 20-hour search. He’s been charged with felony murder with a firearm and burglary of a conveyance by battery with a firearm in the shooting death of Joseph Beck, also 29, in front of a home on Bronco Drive in the Bay Lake Ranch area off Old Melbourne Highway east of the city.
Miller made his first appearance in front of a judge on Monday. He remains detained, without bond, pending a further hearing. Miller has an extensive arrest record, with arrests for assault, escaping police, drug possession, burglary and grand theft going back to 2014, and served two and a half years in prison through 2018 on the burglary charge. He was in the Osceola County Jail as recently as March 7, 2024, per Department of Corrections records.
According to Sheriff Marcos Lopez, a home camera showed a man, later identified as Miller, walk toward the victim, later identified as Beck, who was sitting in his truck in the driveway. Miller is seen kicking open the passenger door, then yelling at Beck holding a gun. Miller is then seen hitting Beck with the gun, with one of the strikes a shot is heard, then Miller quickly runs from the scene.
The Sheriff's Office Homicide Unit responded to the home – reportedly Miller’s parents’ house. According to the Sheriff’s arrest warrant, Miller’s mother positively ID’d him in the home video. Another video showed Miller running into a shed on the property and appeared to be wiping an object with a blue towel. Miller then removes his shirt and runs out of the shed empty-handed and heads into the woods.
Beck later died at the hospital from the injury.
Sheriff Marcos Lopez said his agency had obtained an arrest warrant for Miller for the deadly shooting by Saturday night. Detectives searched for him “tirelessly” during the night, acting on tips from the public. After Miller was arrested Sunday morning, he confessed to the crime.
“The public was amazing,” Lopez said. “Goes to show our public helps us at times providing crucial help to arrest people like this.”
Lopez also said Monday the initial argument may have been over a pool pump, leading to a shot going off and, according to the arrest warrant, causing Beck to have one gunshot wound to the abdomen and an abrasion on the left side of his head.
“An argument over a pool pump,” Lopez said disgustedly. “And if you don’t know how to properly handle a firearm, you shouldn’t be holding one. Now he’s facing murder. This completely destroyed a family.”
As for that family, Beck leaves behind three children, a nine-year-old girl and five and six-year-old boys. His ex-wife and the mother of those children, Brittany Harrell, spoke to the News-Gazette on Sunday, and said Miller and Beck were friends through work.
“They knew each other from working for Josh’s parent’s (landscaping company),” said Harrell, who was not at the scene Saturday, where a gathering was taking place. She said her friend who was there heard that Beck had been shot, and Harrell went quickly to the house. “Josh acted like he cared about our kids, and Joey had said Josh and he were like brothers and that Josh was one of the few people who’d ‘been there for him.’
“Then he shoots him, and takes off on foot. He left him there to die.”
Harrell said she was at the Bronco Drive house briefly on Saturday before heading to HCA Florida Hospital Kissimmee, where she said Beck was transported.
“Driving there I felt like I was in a movie … ‘Is this real life?’” she said. “Then when I got there, they brought me into a room where the doctors were, and I expected them to say Joey was in surgery. But the moment I saw them, I knew what happened.”
The family has created a GoFundMe account, to help pay for Beck’s funeral services and help provide for the children.
