Georgia man accused of torching Florida Buddhist temple, damaging sacred relics<\/a><\/p>\nTuesday afternoon, the jury watched a video recording of Lenke being questioned by police detectives in 2021.<\/p>\n
Otto Lenke, a former Indian River County firefighter and former Melbourne Police Officer, is on trial for first-degree murder.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say in February 2021, Lenke shot Richard Benson, the owner of a motorcycle repair shop, Fast Frank’s Custom Cycle Components, which was just down the street from the Fort Pierce Police Department.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say Lenke not only shot Benson, but he also allegedly doused Benson’s body with denatured alcohol and set him on fire while he was still alive. The disturbing incident was caught on surveillance video.<\/p>\n
This is what Benson’s girlfriend told CBS12 in 2021.<\/p>\n
“Well, the person that I loved is gone suddenly, and it just feels really empty,” said Lisa Diggs, Benson’s girlfriend in 2021. <\/p>\n
According to the arrest report, surveillance video showed a man wearing a helmet enter the business and shoot Benson from behind. The attacker then poured a liquid on Benson and shot him one more time as Benson lay on the ground. The attacker poured more liquid on Benson and then used a stick-like lighter to set him on fire before running away. Prosecutors say a possible motive for the attack is that Lenke was upset that Benson was dating a woman whom Lenke once dated.<\/p>\n
“To be loved by him, I just feel very honored because he was such a good person and he chose me to love, so he’s irreplaceable, that’s all,” Diggs said in 2021.<\/p>\n
When questioned by detectives, Lenke said he had his daughter’s car all day, but went to a hangar at the Valkaria Airport near Melbourne for a few hours to go through old boxes. He said he went home around 5 pm. and went for a swim with his girlfriend. He said he was not in Fort Pierce and didn’t know Benson.<\/p>\n
Lenke’s defense attorneys would not say if Lenke will testify in his own defense.<\/p>\n
A verdict is expected by Thursday or Friday.<\/p>\n
The state is seeking the death penalty in the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT PIERCE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A former police officer and firefighter is now at the center of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-260459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}