{"id":269836,"date":"2026-05-13T19:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T19:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/269836\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T19:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T19:29:09","slug":"man-arrested-on-drug-trafficking-charges-after-murder-at-his-st-pete-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/269836\/","title":{"rendered":"Man arrested on drug trafficking charges after murder at his St. Pete home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Detectives say 55-year-old Darren Kegler was shot in the exchange that left another man dead at his “drug house.”<\/p>\n

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 A St. Pete man is facing drug trafficking charges stemming from a\u00a0murder investigation at his home.<\/a><\/p>\n

Detectives say Darren Kegler, 55,\u00a0 was operating a “drug house” at his duplex on 14th Avenue South off Dr. MLK Jr. Street.<\/a> John Knight and Ronnie Dials arrived at the home on April 15 to rob Kegler, according to the police department.<\/p>\n

An altercation broke out, and Dials and Kegler were shot. Dials died at the scene, while Kegler was treated at the hospital for his injuries.<\/p>\n

Knight, 48, was arrested two days later\u00a0<\/a>and charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kegler was arrested on May 12 after detectives said they found drugs in his car during the homicide investigation.<\/p>\n

Detectives reportedly found one kilo of cocaine in Kegler’s car, 463 grams of cocaine in his second car and 173.8 grams of cocaine in a container in his kitchen.<\/p>\n

Kegler is charged with three counts of trafficking in cocaine. He also has a warrant for his arrest out of Orlando for conspiracy to traffic cocaine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Detectives say 55-year-old Darren Kegler was shot in the exchange that left another man dead at his “drug…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-269836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269836","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=269836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}