By Fallan Patterson
Staff Writer

The girlfriends of two men accused of shooting a man in the head and killing a female homeowner in March told detectives they knew their boyfriends were planning on robbing the man of his drugs and money.

Brandy Taylor and Kaitlyn Robare are charged with accessory after the fact for allegedly picking up their respective boyfriends David Eugene Smith and Cody Lee White after they allegedly robbed Patrick Bacon of his money and marijuana around 2 a.m. March 22 before shooting him in the head.

Bacon, 26, of Orlando, survived his injuries but Anita Smith, 59, no relation to David Eugene Smith, was shot and killed  in her backyard at 5625 Lake Lizzie Drive after investigating noises she heard near the shed in her yard. The shooter has yet to be identified.

According to recently released documents, Taylor, 23, told Osceola County Sheriff’s deputies her boyfriend David Smith, 20, and his friend White, 19,  planned for one of them to attack Bacon while the other stole the marijuana while they were all inside Bacon’s 2007 Dodge Charger.

Taylor told deputies she saw the two men leave her house at 1 Paquin Dr. in St. Cloud to meet Bacon but did not see them enter his car.

A short while later, White texted his girlfriend Robare and instructed her to pick him and David Smith up near Nova Road, less than a mile from the shooting.

When Taylor and Robare, with Robare’s 3-year-old daughter, arrived to pick up White and David Smith, Taylor told detectives she saw White put what appeared to be a large bag of marijuana in his waistband. The two men then allegedly told their girlfriends how they had robbed some “dude.”

The fivesome then drove to Cocoa Beach and rented a room, the investigative report stated.

A housekeeper at the Motel 6 on Atlantic Avenue alerted Osceola County Sheriff’s deputies she found a small box of .22 caliber bullets – four live rounds and three spent rounds – inside a wrapped toilet paper roll that appeared to have been tampered with.

Taylor, Robare and White were all picked up by police March 23 after a traffic stop during surveillance of White’s residence at 113 Whitney Street in St. Cloud. A gun and a large storage bag of marijuana were found in the vehicle.

White denied during his police interview meeting with Bacon that night. However, cell phone records show 10 text messages and a five minute phone call between the two men’s phones, including directions to Taylor’s home and Bacon complaining about the quality of marijuana he had purchased.

During their interviews with police, Taylor and Robare were placed in an interrogation room at the Sheriff’s Office and left along by detectives. As police listened in, the pair allegedly discussed how they were deliberately fabricating answers and alibis to detectives about their involvement, specifically impeding where evidence to the crime was located.

According to the report, the women later directed detectives to the area they allegedly discussed lying to police about where evidence to the murder may be located.

Later, Taylor and Robare allegedly began discussing the murder weapon, stating the one police found in Taylor’s car is White’s and wasn’t the gun used in the murder.

“They don’t even got the gun. You threw the gun. The gun, did they find it?” Robare allegedly asked Taylor. “They (police) can’t hear us right now, can they?”

After Robare and Taylor were released from custody, Taylor and David Smith fled to Fort Lauderdale where the local SWAT team spent two hours outside a residence persuading them to exit. The pair were staying at a friend of Taylor’s after Taylor asked if they could “lay low” at the friend’s home because “someone had died,” the police report stated.

In addition to be charged with accessory after the fact, Taylor and Robare were both charged with reporting false information to law enforcement.

Taylor was granted $20,000 bail June 8 with the stipulations that she must reside at her grandmother’s Kissimmee residence under electronic monitoring home confinement, is subject to random drug and alcohol testing and cannot have contact with her co-defendants. As of press time, she remained in the Osceola County Jail.

Robare is being held on  no bond at the Osceola County Jail.

Both White and David Smith were on probation at the time of the shootings and were each charged with first-degree murder with a firearm, attempted first-degree murder with a firearm and robbery with a firearm. They are being held in the Osceola County Jail on no bond.

Their charge of possession of a concealed weapon by a convicted felony was dropped by the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office.

The foursome is scheduled to go on trial September 4 at the Osceola County Courthouse in Kissimmee.