The Misery Machine - The Case of John Torneo

Starting point is 00:00:03 John Joseph Tourneo was born to parents Conchetto and Mary Tourneo and spent 65 of his 67 years in the New England city of Bristol, Connecticut. He grew up in a traditional Italian. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes and secure a spot.

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Starting point is 00:01:11 Start selling now. Deepop where taste recognizes taste. ...in household and attended the former St. Anthony's School. He had one brother named Leo. John was described as a friend to everyone he met who tried to help those less fortunate. One way in which John tried to help others was through a career in nursing that spanned over 30 years.

Starting point is 00:01:31 Bring to his LinkedIn profile, he worked as an LPN for a company called AMS out of East Springfield, Massachusetts for seven years before retiring. After he left healthcare, John moved to Davenport, Florida, where he settled in the Polo Park West retirement community for folks 55 and older. Per their website, Polo Park West offers a warm, welcoming 55-plus community designed for those who want to enjoy life to the fullest. That is exactly what John did. He grew very close with his neighbors, attended barbecues, and enjoying all of the things that retirement in the Sunshine State has to offer. In addition, John's helpful spirit led him to help this young man, 19-year-old Julian Andre Trevino. Currently, not a lot is known about Julian other than the fact that he was homeless

Starting point is 00:02:16 and had been staying with John since September of 2025. It's still unknown exactly how the two came to meet each other. However, this living arrangement turned sour pretty quickly due to Julian taking advantage of John's goodwill. In fact, on December 10th, he had kicked him. him out for good for not paying his share of the rent or helping with chores. According to neighbor Luis Jutris, John had recently changed the locks on his doors as Julian was no longer welcome there. She and her husband Dan had met John three years prior and often helped take care of his

Starting point is 00:02:46 beloved dog, Ashley. The last time Dan and Louise saw John was on December 11th. After not seen him for a few days, the couple grew worried because this wasn't like their neighbor at all. And they could hear poor Ashley barking inside when they went to bring him some Christmas the streets. Around 1.30 p.m. on December 14th, they called in a welfare check. Sadly, their worst fears had come true, but it was even more horrendous than they ever could have imagined. Hello, everyone. Thank you for being with us today. We are going to brief you on two

Starting point is 00:03:24 topics, the first one being a murder. So let me tell you about this. It's called Polo Park. Polk, Orange, Lake, and Osceola. It is a retirement community. It's Polo Park West. It's right up at 27 and 192 where all of the counties intersect. It is a remarkable retirement community where people not only retire in their golden years, but they look out for each other. It's a fun community.

Starting point is 00:03:58 It's a fun place to live. But that fun place to live turned into anything. but that pretty quickly. So let me take you to Sunday afternoon about 1 or 1.30. A neighbor called the sheriff's office and said, you know, I'm real concerned about my friend John Torneo, who's 67. We're pretty close, and I haven't seen or heard from him in a couple of days. Around September, he had a 19-year-old kid move in with him.

Starting point is 00:04:33 John's a retired nurse, 30 years in Connecticut, just a superhuman being and always wants to help people. Well, last Wednesday, he made this 19-year-old leave because he wasn't helped paying the rent. He wasn't helped keeping up the house, so they put him out. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business, from designing a website to marketing to selling and and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and all birds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into...

Starting point is 00:05:15 Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. And now I haven't seen John in a couple of days. So our deputy arrives at the scene, and the neighbor has a key to the house. So while the neighbor goes in to look in the house, our deputy stays outside and is doing some work on the computer and is working with a real-time crime center. The deputy discovers that the victim's vehicle is traveling south on Highway 27 and the deputy thinks, well, he's just not home. Sadly, it was something much more sinister than that, but nobody knew that yet. The neighbor comes back out of the house and says, no, he's not in there. So the deputy thinks, well, he's not in there.

Starting point is 00:06:05 His vehicle's moving south on 27. And in 12 minutes clears the call. Look, I know adults have the right to go missing, so to speak, when they choose to. But I really wish we'd listen to people more when they know that something's off. So according to Louise, and I quote, it just didn't seem like him to jump in the car and go. if only the deputy would have done a cursory search of the property. Texting and trying to call his friend John, and there's no answer. And it's eating it, the neighbor.

Starting point is 00:06:42 And he says, something's just wrong about this. This is not my friend, John Torneo, that I know. Now, during this time, Louise began calling John's phone multiple times and got no response. A short time later, she started receiving a string of bizarre text messages from an unknown number. According to Louise, the first message said, Ashley is all good. And then the second message said, yes, I'm good. And Jay is going to take care of her. He's coming by now to do it.

Starting point is 00:07:17 John would have never said that. So I'm like, okay, this is clue number three. It's unclear who Jay is, but it's possible that Jay is Julian based on Louise's reaction. So the neighbor gets with a couple of other neighbors. They go back to the house by themselves, unlike the house, and go in. Now, there's one bedroom that's locked. So they take a screwdriver and they take the lock off of the door and go in. And there's John, dead, disemboweled, eviscerated on the floor.

Starting point is 00:07:52 So obviously they call the sheriff's office and we re-respond to the event. What an absolutely horrible way to find your friend and neighbor, especially right before Christmas. If only the deputy would have listened to the neighbor. And Sheriff Judd does address that, which I'm glad. We need to hold folks accountable and give them the training they need to better serve their communities. We've heard two different accounts as to where John was found. Sheriff Judd mentioned the bedroom and other publications have mentioned a bathroom. Let me pause there to say that the deputy in our estimation, who has been with us about a year, is a really fine young deputy, but obviously needs more training.

Starting point is 00:08:40 So we have taken her out of patrol. She can no longer work by herself until she goes back through our third phase of training again. she in our estimation and my estimation did just enough but she didn't go above and beyond had she gone above and beyond had she walked around the perimeter of the house she would have seen a screen off of the bathroom door or excuse me the bathroom window this is what i meant by if only the deputy would have done a cursory search of the property. It wouldn't have changed the outcome, but it would have gotten the wheels turning sooner. So at the end of the day, it didn't make any difference. It's baseball, but so much more. Go bananas for banana ball with ESPN on Disney Plus.

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Starting point is 00:10:02 Our victim, John, had been deceased for hours and hours. So the investigations on our detectives, which are the very best, who have only, this team only has like two unsolved. homicides in 18 or 19 years is on this case. Get to solving them, please. They're more than just a cold case for families. We start the investigation and what we find out is, as I reported to you, our victim had been severely cut in the stomach.

Starting point is 00:10:39 And as we learned that autopsy had also been hit in the head. To be clear, John had been beaten over the head. beaten over the head with a bottle of manage, a twas, red blend and completely eviscerated with a kitchen knife. He murdered him with cheap wine. We discovered our 19-year-old as Julian Trevino, and he, in fact, had been put out of the house on Wednesday. We searched and found our victim's car during the search before we

Starting point is 00:11:17 found Julian Trevino, we found that he had used the victim's credit card at a circle K in the area, and he had used the victim's credit card at the pizza restaurant that he worked as a dishwasher. Julian isn't the sharpest tool in the shed clearly. I mean, I got to tell you, Helen Keller could have followed the leads that this guy left. This is what we call a slow pitch criminal investor. He said it, not me. I just called him a tool, which he is. So we, through investigative means and working with our colleagues, found the victim's vehicle. And our detectives set up on the vehicle. Now, we had our suspect identified very quickly.

Starting point is 00:12:09 We gathered evidence very quickly, and we're watching the vehicle. Now it's about 4 o'clock on Monday morning. We see our suspect come out and get into the victim's vehicle. Our detectives immediately tried to take our suspect, Julian Trevino, into custody. He didn't want to be arrested. Of course not. Julian isn't very skilled at life. So he fled from us.

Starting point is 00:12:36 We attempted to pit the vehicle a couple of times unsuccessfully. And finally, in his urge to get away. from us he ran into a ditch and crashed the car jumped out and ran on foot see not very good at this our homicide detectives which are known as being meticulous kind of guys ran him down so they not only got to do follow-up they got to be involved in a pursuit and catch the bad guy i knew about investing but i really didn't know how to go about it meet corey a wealthfront client with With Wealthfront, it could put money in, and it would automatically distribute it into a diversified portfolio. Then it starts to compound.

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Starting point is 00:13:34 Task performance does not guarantee future results. I was proud of them. Quite frankly, I'd like to see them running. So when we arrested him, then he confessed. And this is what he told us. I was really angry when he put me out of the house. And now I'm having to live in a shed by a friend's house. I didn't want to give away from my girlfriend.

Starting point is 00:14:00 He never left the vicinity from where he committed to murder. Is this where we're at today? Murdering someone because they kicked you out of their house? I'm sorry. But if you would have just picked you. up after yourself and spent your pizza shop money on rent like the rest of us, maybe you wouldn't have had to live in a shed down by your friend's house. He didn't want to leave his girlfriend. Well, now she'll have to come see you at the Polk County Jail. So about three to four o'clock

Starting point is 00:14:26 on Sunday morning, he goes back to John's house and he breaks in. He breaks in to the bathroom window and hides in a closet. When he hears our victim, John, settle in for the night, then he goes to stealing cash credit cards. And what happens then, our victim wakes up. He sees Julian. He understands who he is,

Starting point is 00:15:05 because he's lived with him since about September. remember and our victim confront Julian and says, you're not supposed to be here. At that point in time, our suspect told us, I shoved John down on the bed and ran to the kitchen and retrieved a knife, a butcher knife. I ran back to the bedroom and I stabbed him and I cut him. He eviscerated Introducing Taco Bell's new Halapino Citrus salsa

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Starting point is 00:16:02 Taco Bell's halapeno citrus salsa Get it with any item on the canteen of chicken menu While it's here The participating U.S. talkable locations for a limited time only while supplies last. Contact store for availability. And then he took a wine bottle.

Starting point is 00:16:18 John keeps a wine cooler in his bedroom. Menajetois was the wine. You can buy it for $7.49. And beat him in the head with it to make sure he was dead. Then he took the wine bottle and the knife, left the neighborhood, He had to walk across the street between some mobile homes. It's still dark in the 4 o'clock Sunday morning era and through the knife and the wine bottle into the creek.

Starting point is 00:16:54 He told us he did that and we were able to go back and recover both of them. As you can see from this picture, the knife was retrieved from the bottom of the creek with a large magnet, otherwise known as magnet fishing. Then he left in the victim's vehicle and was driving around using his credit cards, spending his cash when we arrested him. So in about 12 hours, 11 hours from the time our homicide team arrived, we had our suspect in custody. Again, it is so important that Louise and Dan listened to their gut here, because even with the initial misstep from the first deputy, Julian was still apprehended very quickly all things considered. Remember, if you see something, say something. But it's important to understand that sometimes when you're nice, evil people, they kill you. Here's what's difficult about this to understand.

Starting point is 00:18:02 John thought he was a kid needing a home that he was homeless. Julian Trevino did not have a criminal record. John, who was a retired nurse and had helped so many people along life's way and was a great neighbor, did not have a criminal record. And this all started because another neighbor was going to John's house to provide holiday goodies and help celebrate the Christmas season. It's sad. It's real sad. But we have him in custody.

Starting point is 00:18:46 We have evidence, mountains of evidence, and now we are wrapping up the investigation. Whereupon, we will make sure that, that Julian, at a minimum, spends the rest of his life in prison. I could argue with the heinousness and the violence and the fact that he broke in, it was a home invasion, burglary robbery, that he shoved him down, ran to the kitchen and ran back and stabbed him, eviscerated him, disembowled him, beat him in a head.

Starting point is 00:19:32 with a cheap wine bottle that maybe the state attorney will decide that this should be a capital murder but that's the state attorney's decision and will fully support that our state attorney's office brian hoss and his team are simply the very best killing someone with cheap wine should be a capital offense especially such a nice man julian trevino is currently being held without bond at the South County Jail with his first arraignment scheduled for January 20th of 20th of 26. As with all cases that have yet to go to trial, Julian is considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. We will keep an eye out for updates as soon as they become available. Currently, he is facing 18 charges, including first-degree murder, armed robbery, tampering with

Starting point is 00:20:21 evidence in a felony, three counts of that, armed burglary of a dwelling, burglary of an occupied dwelling, obtain property by force, criminal use of personal identification, tampering with the victim, grand theft from a dwelling, grand theft motor vehicle, fleeing to elude, theft of a bank card, fraudulent use of a bank card, resisting without violence, petite theft, and driving without a valid license. In close, we would like to leave you with a Facebook post that a man named Vinnie left about John. It reads, terrible humans suck. I can't stop thinking about one of my great customers who became a friend who was murdered this past week in Florida. John Torneo, you will be missed so much. Thank you for the pasta sauce recipe. I'm so sad I won't see you again. Sadly, John didn't have any

Starting point is 00:21:09 funeral information published, so weren't able to share with you much about his life, as his obituary and Facebook profile offered little clues into his 67 years on this earth. I sincerely wish there was more we could share with you all about him. If John's story resonated with you, then please click here to check out the story of Patrick Benway, also out of Polk County, Florida. Patrick was an 81-year-old man living in an unlicensed group home in Bartow when he was brutally murdered by his much younger housemate. In fact, it's actually quite shocking just how similar these two stories are. With this in mind, authorities in Florida have still yet to find Patrick's next of kin,

Starting point is 00:21:50 so if you know Patrick or know someone who does, The contact information will be in the description of this video.

The Misery Machine - The Case of John Torneo

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