A 29-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the recent robbery of a 97-year-old World War II veteran.
Detectives with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office say the veteran drove his lawnmower to a convenience store in the Okahumpka area in July to purchase groceries. Upon returning home, he was met at the back door of his residence by a suspect armed with a gun. Family members later found the man unconscious with head injuries and his wallet was missing.
Detectives located a Black & Mild cigarillo tip at the scene of the robbery and collected it for processing. During the investigation, they also obtained security video from the convenience store that showed a black male in the store near the victim at the time of his purchase. The black male purchased a Black & Mild cigarillo and left within minutes of the victim, a sheriff’s office report states.
Detectives were then able to identify the person in the video surveillance as Kevin Eugene Leeks Jr. A search warrant was obtained for a sample of his DNA, which was sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s lab for testing. Leeks’ DNA was matched to that on the cigarillo tip found at the scene, as well as DNA on the victim’s pants.
Leeks was located Wednesday by members of the Violent Fugitive Task Force at a hotel in Leesburg. He was taken into custody on a Lake County warrant charging him with home invasion/robbery with a firearm and theft from a person 65 years of age or older and held on $79,000 bond.