A Hillsborough County judge sentenced Joseph Killins to life in prison after a jury found him guilty on all charges against him.
TAMPA, Fla. — A Hillsborough County jury found Joseph Killins guilty on all counts Thursday in the 2023 kidnapping and sexual assault of a DoorDash driver, rejecting his claim that the encounter was consensual.
Jurors deliberated for less than 30 minutes before returning the verdict.
Killins began yelling and cursing after the verdict was announced. Deputies escorted him from the courtroom after Circuit Judge Lyann Goudie ordered that he be taken to a holding cell.
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The convictions include armed kidnapping, sexual battery, attempted first-degree murder and robbery-related charges stemming from two attacks in April 2023.
Killins took the stand Thursday. He denied kidnapping or sexually assaulting the DoorDash driver, shooting one of the women who came to rescue her, or attacking and robbing another woman the following morning.
Killins testified that he and the driver had been involved in a secret relationship and had arranged to meet while she was delivering a pizza to a Tampa hotel.
He claimed the driver greeted him affectionately and allowed him into her car. Killins said she suffered a panic attack after he told her he wanted to end their relationship. He testified that she then asked him to continue riding with her and that he fell asleep in the back seat.
“How can I kidnap somebody when I’m completely asleep in the car?” Killins asked during cross-examination.
Killins said he woke up at the Belara Lakes apartment complex, where he claimed the sexual contact between them was consensual.
His account directly contradicted the driver’s testimony. She told jurors that Killins confronted her with a gun while she was making a delivery, forced her back into her vehicle and made her drive around Tampa before sexually assaulting her at the apartment complex.
Prosecutors questioned Killins about why the driver vomited during the encounter. Killins said she did not vomit every time they had sexual contact but did that night.
Killins also offered a different account of the shooting that followed.
The driver’s girlfriend and others tracked her cellphone to the apartment complex and arrived to rescue her. Prosecutors said Killins opened fire, striking one of the rescuers in the head.
Killins claimed one of the women brought the gun and accidentally shot her own sister while attempting to shoot him. When prosecutors showed Killins surveillance video in which the woman’s visible right hand appeared empty, he acknowledged that her hand was empty but continued to insist that she had possessed the gun.
“I did not shoot no gun,” Killins testified.
Killins also denied attacking a second woman at the apartment complex the following morning. That woman testified Wednesday that Killins beat her and stole her backpack, leaving her with bruises and a split lip. Neighbors testified that they heard her screaming, witnessed the attack and came to help.
Before prosecutors rested their case Thursday, an investigating sergeant testified that Killins’ account changed as detectives confronted him with surveillance footage and other evidence.
A former co-worker, Michelle Peacock, also testified that she recognized Killins in video shown to her by police. Peacock said she repeatedly told investigators, “That’s him.”
During closing arguments, prosecutors urged jurors to reject Killins’ account, while the defense maintained that the state had not proven its allegations beyond a reasonable doubt.
The jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts in only half an hour after beginning deliberations.
Goudie has sentenced Killins to life in prison on all four counts against him plus an additional 30 years for robbery and possession of a weapon as a convicted felon.