Two women are charged in the 2007 shooting death of a man during a robbery in Lauderdale Lakes after a tip led detectives to an inmate at a women’s prison in north-central Florida.
On May 13, 2007, Leon Heron, 34, had just gotten out of his car in the parking lot of his apartment complex in the 4800 block of Northwest 29th Court about midnight when two people came up and tried to rob him, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
“They just happened upon Leon, who was coming home to his wife that night,” Cold Case Homicide Unit Detective David Towsley said in an episode of the Sheriff’s Office online series “Open and Unsolved.”
As Heron fought back and began to get the upper hand in the struggle, one of the attackers shot him, Towsley said in the video.
It was long unknown whether Heron was targeted or if the attack was random, the Sheriff’s Office said. The two suspects have been identified as Brittany Hanfield, 36, who has been serving a sentence at Lowell Correctional Institution, and Sheila Arstil, 37, of Lauderhill. They were both teenagers at the time of the shooting.
Brittany Hanfield, 36, left, and Sheila Arstil, 37, right, are facing a murder charge in connection with the 2007 shooting death of Leon Heron, 34, 34, outside of his Lauderdale Lakes apartment, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said. (Broward Sheriff’s Office/Courtesy)
In April 2023, Towsley received a tip from an inmate at a Florida prison that another inmate might know about Heron’s murder — Hanfield, who was sentenced to prison in 2008 for a robbery in Broward County and is serving a 25-year sentence. The Sheriff’s Office did not provide further information in the video and news release about the inmate’s tip.
Hanfield allegedly said she was a witness, but the detective determined she was one of the suspects, the Sheriff’s Office said in the news release.
Towsley said DNA evidence connected both Hanfield and Arstil to the crime scene and that they’ve both allegedly confessed.
Detectives met with Arstil at her home at a redacted address in Florida in September 2024 after their interview with Hanfield, according to a probable cause affidavit. She allegedly made “several incriminating statements,” including that she had a small handgun and that Heron was shot accidentally during the robbery.
Both Hanfield and Arstil were charged by indictment on Oct. 7 with first-degree murder. They have pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Hanfield is held in the Paul Rein Detention Facility while Arstil is in the North Broward Bureau, jail records show.