JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 It\u2019s been a little over nine months since Robert Velleca was found floating in the Ortega River. The then-36-year-old\u2019s death was ruled a homicide back in September. It remains unsolved.<\/p>\n
His mother, Margaret Mallory, told Action News Jax in an emotional interview that this time has felt like a movie for them, and they want justice.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been terrible; it\u2019s been just an empty hole. We\u2019ve had several holidays now, and it\u2019s just so obvious he\u2019s gone,\u201d Mallory said. \u201cVery silly, very helpful. He loved fixing things, I loved that about him, he could fix anything around here,\u201d she said, describing life with her son.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n She says it was in November of 2024, months before his death, when his life took a turn.<\/p>\n She says he had a near-deadly encounter with people she believes are also responsible for his murder.<\/p>\n \u201cThey beat him. He had broken bones in his face; he had lots of injuries,\u201d she said. \u201cThey were going to kill him, he jumped out a window, his hands were zip-tied behind his back.\u201d<\/p>\n Mallory says a week before the trial, where he\u2019d testify against them, he was murdered.<\/p>\n In a JSO incident report from the day he was found, police say they spoke to a complainant who said he \u201cwas out on the waterway fishing when he found the victim on the water.\u201d The complainant then called the police.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n \u201cIf you can share the last time you saw him, who you saw him with, any details, I know that any little pieces can help reignite this case,\u201d Mallory said.<\/p>\n She encourages anyone with information to contact the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n Action News Jax reached out to JSO and asked for any updates regarding this case, as well as if any arrests have been made at any point since September.<\/p>\n They replied with this statement:<\/p>\n \u201cThis continues to be an active case with detectives working to identify a potential suspect(s). Unfortunately, there is no new information at this time to disseminate. We would ask anyone having pertinent information in this case to contact us, so we might follow up in an effort to bring the individual responsible to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 It\u2019s been a little over nine months since Robert Velleca was found floating in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9286,116,118,117,58888,103295,1872,634,125197,125195,39152,125196,13655,24471,7842],"class_list":["post-297303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-ben","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jasmine","tag-jasmine_butler","tag-jso","tag-local","tag-margaret_mallory","tag-ortega_river","tag-robert","tag-robert_valleca","tag-shaq","tag-tanika","tag-tanika_hughes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297303","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=297303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}