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True Crime Garage
Kyle Byrtus ////// 753
00:50:58
Kyle Byrtus ////// 753 Part 1 of 1 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com On August 15th, 2013 a body was discovered by an electrical worker in a developing area called Lehigh Acres. Later it was learned that this was the body of 25 year old Kyle Byrtus. The victim had been tied and killed. The Lee County Sheriff’s Office just caught another homicide case. Kyle’s case remains unsolved to this day. The case appears to not have gone “cold” as detectives are still chasing a few leads. There was a lot of criminal activity in this area at the time. Some of this activity has provided information about Kyle’s case. SWFL Crime Stoppers are on the case. They are available 24/7 and there is a reward for information that leads to an arrest, the recovery or weapons, narcotics, stolen property or the capture of a wanted fugitive. Crime Stoppers keeps you anonymous. If you have helpful information about the murder of Kyle Byrtus or any Southwest Florida crime please call 800- 780- TIPS Beer o...
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- [00:00]
Narrator/Advertiser
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Foreign Language Speaker/Advertiser
Foreign.
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Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me, as always, is a man who has two months to prepare for the summer of the Captain. Here is the cap.
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Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
And then after that, he only has two months to live. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend.
- [01:34]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
This week we are happy to once again be featuring another great beer from one of our favorite breweries. Today we have some Hop Cult Vic Secret from our buddies at Tactical Brewing Company down in Orlando, Florida. Hop Cult Vic Secret is a West coast style IPA brewed with Vic Secret Secret hops. Vic's secret hops tend to be piny and earthy and you can get some notes of fruit depending on when you introduce them in the brewing process. This beer is different in a good way. It's dank and a little bitter. ABV 7% garage grade. Three and a half bottle caps out of five. And let's put these tall cans in the air and toast those who helped us to fill up the old garage fridge. First, a cheers to Lindsey in Wadsworth, Ohio. And next we have Jen, originally from Cleveland. I told you about the Cleveland thing, Captain Jen is currently in Frederick, Maryland. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the beer fund.
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Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah, BWR you and Beer Run.
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Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And for those of you that didn't see the news on our social media, if you're not following us, you should be following us. Big news. The Captain is going to Scotland and he's going to be at the Glasgow Crime Con event and that is April 27th.
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Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah, it's very cool because you can either pay to go into the whole event or you can just pay to go into the end part, which is my portion. So you can spend an evening with the Captain. We're going to tell some funny stories and do a Q A and it's going to be a good time and hopefully we'll drink some suds. So onward and upward. And that's enough of the business.
- [03:23]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
All right, everybody gather round. Grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. Crime doesn't pay, but Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers does. Call in with your tips. 800, 780 tips. Southwest Crime Stoppers works. You want to help stop crime? Be a part of the process anonymously. Help fight crime. Anyone with information about criminal activity, wanted fugitives or any crime can submit a tip anonymously without the fear of retaliation to the Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers and they will forward your information to the proper authorities to investigate without revealing your identity. They are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, proudly serving six Florida counties, including Lee county and 16 law enforcement agencies. Spanish speaking operators are available. They guarantee anonymity. No caller ID, no recorded lines, no phone tracking. Last year in 2023, Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers helped to make 215 arrests and 361 cases cleared with reward money approval for over $65,000. If the information you the tipster provided is helpful and leads to an arrest, the recovery of weapons, narcotics, stolen property, or the capture of a wanted fugitive, you could be eligible to receive a cash reward of up to $3,000. The 2013 murder of Kyle Burtis is just one of these cases that needs your help. Crime Stoppers is the only method that keeps you anonymous and can put cash in your pocket. This is true Crime Garage and this is the still unsolved homicide case of Kyle Burtis. We are going to go down to Lee County, Florida for this week's case and we start off on August 15, 2013. This was a Thursday, a normal work day, before everything got turned upside down. We have a seasoned worker for the Lee County Electric Cooperative who's heading out to do some work that day. Back then, they were developing what is called Lehigh Acres. This was a bit of a work in progress at the time. When heading out to the work location, our Lee County Electric Cooperative worker, he makes what will turn out to be a wrong turn. This is at Lee Court and Meadow Road. There, the man spots a curious sight. He sees some buzzards milling about in a field. This is very near the road. They are attempting to swarm something as buzzards often do. Now, this isn't anything that anyone who works primarily outside has not seen before. And the same is true for our worker here in Lehigh Acres. On this day. In this area, the object that caught the attention of the large birds, he just assumed it would have been perhaps a dead animal, maybe a dead hog or Dog, possibly even a deer. The man then recognizes that he has made a wrong turn. So knowing that he would need to turn around, he's attempting to do so. But that is when something caught his eye. Something that told him, no, this was not a hog or a deer. He saw feet. Well, shoes to be more accurate. And then he made phone calls to report what he could not believe that he was seeing. At the start of his workday, this was the body of a young man. Lee County Deputy Leslie Green was the first to respond to the scene. And there he located the body of a Caucasian male wearing black cargo shorts, gray long sleeve shirt and tennis shoes. The hands were tied behind his back. The male was dead. And the deputy was unsure of how long the body had laid there, but also unsure of how long the victim had been dead. But what the deputy was sure of was that this was the result of foul play. There were obvious and clear signs of foul play. The victim again had his hands tied behind his back. And there were several noticeable gunshot wounds to the victim.
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Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
It's a dramatic start to your day. You see this body, like you said, obvious signs that this is not just an accident. Victims hands are bound behind their back, there's gunshot wounds. Bad weather is coming. So since this is a crime scene and we got to protect it, so they have to set up tents so they could preserve the crime scene.
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Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And your crime scene is everything. Right. Especially at this point in your investigation. We don't know who the victim is. We have no leads at this point. Anything that is going to provide us with a lead, we hope that we're going to find it at this crime scene. And if inclement weather comes in, that's going to destroy your scene before you can, you can process it thoroughly and appropriately.
- [10:00]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Well, at this point, we don't know if the murderer left behind the weapon or if they left behind other evidence. And, and if it starts raining, you're talking about washing away of evidence.
- [10:14]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Lee County Sheriff's Office, they're going to set up tents, they're going to try to secure this area, and they're going to be looking for clues. What does the crime scene tell us now, later? What we're going to learn here, Captain, is that the medical examiner would sort out some of the details of this homicide, a lot of which has not been released to the public even to this day. Right. This is 2013 that we're talking about now. What was released is that the victim was tied up, hands tied behind his back, and there were several gunshot wounds with One report states that there were gunshot wounds to the torso of the victim, the right forearm and the victim's head. They quickly learned the identity of the victim. This was 25 year old Kyle Burtis. He was from Fort Myers, Florida, originally. This is nearby. Remember, he's found dead in Lehigh Acres.
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Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Right.
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Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Both are in close proximity to one another. But what the investigation would quickly yield is that this young man had moved around leading up to the time of his death.
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Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
So as law enforcement examines the crime scene, they're going to want to know more details about the victim.
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Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Kyle Alexander Burtis was born May 17, 1988 in Hollywood, Florida. He was the only son of Lynn Krieger. When Kyle was very little, his mom moved back to Fort Myers. This to be closer to family. Kyle was also the oldest grandchild and only grandson to Lynn's parents. He was very close with his grandfather growing up and sometimes would travel with his grandfather on these grandpa and grandson trips. Kyle was involved as a student and not just at school, but very active and involved with his church youth group as well. He went on several mission trips to Central America with his church youth group. The group would put on these shows to entertain at orphanages in Guatemala and Honduras. Kyle played some sports as a youngster, but he got serious when he got to high school and got on the track team. Running cross country was his passion. Now, he told several people that he enjoyed the competition part of cross country, but he also found this to be a great escape, a great mental escape, almost. Running cross country was a form of meditation for Kyle Burtis, and he was good at it, too. I found many competitions that were listed in newspapers around this time, Captain, where Kyle placed among the top finishers consistently in these competitions. Especially his senior year when Kyle was the co captain of the cross country team. And he wasn't just good on the cross country team, he was good in the classroom as well. Kyle got straight a's and graduated Fort Myers High School with honors in 2006.
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Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
And because of his success as an athlete and a student athlete, he's going to get a scholarship to Florida Atlantic University. University.
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Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
That's right, captain. The result is hard work pays off and he's got this scholarship to Florida Atlantic. This is located in not too far away, Boca Raton, Florida. So Kyle leaves for Boca Raton in August of 2006 to go off and start his time at college. This is tricky and I step into this lightly because unfortunately, in our time doing this show and covering these cases, I feel like one out of every 15 to 20. We're talking about somebody who's going off to college and something happens. You know, there's, there's a turn in their life. This can be a scary time for parents, as we know, and a scary and difficult time for the young adult as well.
- [14:32]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Right.
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Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Going off to school, leaving their friends, getting out on their own, and oftentimes trying to fit into this, this bigger new scene, questioning oneself. Did I pick the right school? Should I have moved away? So this is a, this can be a lot for a lot of different people. Kyle's mother, Lynn today says that she is haunted by some phone conversations that she had with Kyle while he was away at school. Kyle told his mother that some kids in his dorm had overdosed on drugs.
- [15:11]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Right.
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Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And in other conversations, she remembers Kyle telling her that he was stressed out and that as hard as he worked and as great as his mother and grandparents were, he says that nothing could have prepared him or really anybody, in his opinion, for that big year, that big first year of college.
- [15:35]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah, it's a lonely time. You're trying to figure out what your next steps are. There's a lot of people that do well in high school because it's a routine that is provided to you. And now you have to kind of provide your own routine in life. And how many people go to college and experiment with drugs for the first time or with alcohol? And that's not uncommon or unreasonable to think a student's going to do that. But when you, you're hearing that there's individuals in his dorm room that are overdosing, that'd be scary as a, as a parent, because you know your kid's going to experiment a little bit, but you want it, you want them to do that in moderation and obviously not with hardcore drugs.
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Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
It's so easy for a lot of us, yours truly included, to fall into the old monkey see, monkey do situation. And here there starts to be some hints that things are shifting, right? The good hard working student athlete of high school maybe isn't having such a great time his freshman year. So there's some hints that things are going askew for Kyle. And then later there's going to be indicators that Kyle, like some of the other FAU students probably, and I even say likely ones in his dorm based off of conversations he had with his mother, he too started to experiment with drugs. This would lead to trouble for Kyle. This means trouble at school. And eventually he finds himself on probation at fau and eventually he drops out altogether.
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Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Well, again, this is a very Difficult time. Because when you're focused and driven in high school, sometimes that causes burnout. And so then when you get to college, it's not that you can't be a good student, doesn't mean you can't be a good student athlete, but you've just been working so hard and you've been running for so long that some of these kids would be better off just taking a year off.
- [17:56]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
I wish, I wish, I wish that there was some kind of way that when you send these kids off for freshman year at college, that you could wrap them in bubble wrap, put the earmuffs on, football helmet on top and blinders on, and just say, keep your head down and fight through this first year. Because once you get through that, if you can make it through that, you can make it through the other three years. Right? That's, that's, to me, that's the mountain climbing up the top of the mountain. The other three years feel like you can kind of coast a little bit, or at least you've already adapted to a. A very different change in life. Now, unfortunately, as we said, he drops out of Florida Atlantic, and Kyle, with no other real great options here, he's going to turn to his loving family. Kyle went home to his family in Fort Myers. Yeah, but unfortunately. And we've seen this before, haven't we, Captain? While returning home may work for some, it certainly doesn't always work for everyone. For Kyle, living at home meant house rules and curfews. And after being away on his own, that just didn't work out well for him. Kyle was staying out at all hours of the night. His mother, Lynn, worried that he was out drinking and partying with friends. He was, but the reality is he was probably doing more than just drinking with friends. And I. Let's use that term loosely, right. When we're talking about certain circles. But she, like most parents, didn't really know what her adult son was up to. Eventually, they decided it would be best for Kyle to get back out there on his own. So he moved to Boca Raton with, where he stayed for about five years. And my understanding here, Captain, is that he lived in rentals during this time with a few different people. Most of this would be his former classmates, some of them from fau.
- [20:07]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Right.
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Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
They seemed to move each year when the lease was up and moved to a new place, a new apartment. And sometimes this would mean different people, different roommates. Now, while in Boca, he worked at several different restaurants to support himself. He would come home to visit mom and the grandparents and the rest of the family on holidays. But he would only stay most of these times for just a day or maybe two. On the rare occasions that he would stay longer, his mother noticed that he always got sick. Now, looking back, Lynn realizes that it was the drugs that were making Kyle
- [20:50]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
sick, or the lack of drugs.
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Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yes, actually, the lack thereof would be a better phrase. He was probably going through withdrawals at this time. Kyle's family, and Kyle, too, would try to get him clean. Kyle, however, even though. And when arrangements were made for him to go to rehab, he decided that rehab was not going to be for him.
- [21:18]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Right.
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Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And even though he was making efforts to try to get clean, this was not an avenue that he was going to pursue. He. In fact, he. The statements are that he refused to go, but he did agree to come home and get sober, so he moved in with his grandparents. This might have been a good idea because they were retired at the time, at home most of the time, so they could keep a good eye on Kyle. When he moved back home to get clean, he talked about his drug use. He was addicted to pills. Because of the addiction, work and earning money was difficult, and pills can be expensive. He said he could afford the pills because he, too, was a pusher. He said that he was a middleman. He would get some pills from a supplier and then sell some of them and just take payment in the form of pills. He admitted that he was regularly ingesting up to 10 to 12 pills a day. So that can be an expensive addiction, especially if you're doing 10 to 12 pills a day.
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Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah, very expensive, but also very hard on the body. And the. The problem with pills become that your body keeps adapting. So if you start off with, well, two pills a day works, then eventually it's four pills a day, it works, and then 10 pills a day, and then it just keeps going up and up. And like you said, if you're the middleman and you're just, well, my payments and pills. Well, your payment gets higher and higher.
- [22:54]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
It becomes a vicious cycle, right. Where you're always chasing that dragon. And it's. It's. And I'm not trying to be flippant about it, but it's. It's like Axl Rose said in Mr. Brownstone, I used to do a little, but then the little wouldn't do it. So the little got more and it got more. And that's the same with this situation. I'm sure no one's going to sit here and believe that Kyle started off doing 10 to 12 pills a day.
- [23:22]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Well, again, this is also a dangerous situation because if you can't make money without pushing drugs, if you can't make money without pushing drugs and your habit becomes worse and worse, then the people that you're taking those pills from and they're not getting their money, they're dangerous people because by selling those pills they're taking a risk, you're taking a risk, and then now you're putting yourself in just a riskier situation.
- [23:57]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
This is already a sad situation, a difficult situation that's only going to get more unpleasant because one day taking the pills orally for Kyle just didn't work anymore, right? And so unfortunately he started shooting up.
- [24:31]
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- [26:05]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
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- [29:03]
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- [29:33]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
All right, we are back. Onwards and upwards. Tall cans in the air. Cheers to you and cheers to you Col. Hey.
- [29:43]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Cheers to all the listeners. Cheers to you Captain. Thanks to everyone for joining us back here in the garage once again. 700 over 700 episodes. Still going strong and hopefully we got seven more down the road. Or 700 more. Did I see seven?
- [29:59]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah, only seven more left.
- [30:01]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Only seven more left. So count them down. Add two zeros to that is what we're hoping.
- [30:06]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
It would be nice for us to one day just come up with a benchmark that we're trying to hit. 1200 episodes, 1500 episodes. And then that way we can just kind of put our head down, do the work.
- [30:20]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
No, I say follow me blindly and let's keep going. All right. Kyle, we talked about his situation getting worse and the addiction getting stronger and maybe a little more out of control. We should say, though, that he did manage to get cleaned up for a while, and he did manage to stay sober for a while, but sadly, this was only for a short time. This was very much with the help of his family.
- [30:52]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Right.
- [30:52]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
So it's only for a short time, unfortunately, then he fell back into using. Eventually, Kyle started stealing from his family to feed this addiction. And this is something that. That is sadly going to be familiar to a lot of people out there in listener land, that when a loved one falls into addiction, I mean, essentially becoming a victim themselves of addiction, but then they victimize most of the time. It's. It's the ones closest to them or the loved ones that they have. And it's because it's easy to do. It's. It's taking a few bucks here or there's. Or stealing an item here or there from something that you have access to or from a family member's home. This is what we would later learn from his family. They say that, you know, Kyle was. He was taking some of some items from our homes and trading them or selling them for money to get drugs. This is going to, obviously create a situation where family bands together, and now it's a united front. It's got to be time for Kyle to go back out on his own. So for months, he ended up living on couches at his friend's apartments and houses. Now some of these people are going to be users as well. Then he found his way to a neighborhood that is called Pine manor. I've never been there. Captain. It sounds nice. By the name Pine manor. Guess what? It isn't. Pine manor is a neighborhood that, at least in 2012 and 2013 and probably beyond, was known for drugs and criminal activity. There are drug houses there. We have drug dealers, drug users. And Kyle was really caught up in all of this.
- [32:55]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
So like you said, and we see this often, right. If they don't have a job because of the habit, they then have to start stealing from family members or just start stealing from anybody. So now he's out on his own, and he's going to have to get money for the drugs or he's going to have to steal the drugs himself.
- [33:21]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yes. Find ways to make money or get pills and drugs. He's involved in petty theft. We know that. Then later, we're going to learn that he had a couple of different methods of making money. So one was he would walk around or ride his bike at night, checking cars, vans, and trucks, looking for unlocked car doors. If he finds a vehicle unlocked, now it's time to get inside that vehicle and see what items are inside that he could pilfer.
- [33:54]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Right?
- [33:55]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And then he had this. This receipt grift that he was running for a while. And the way that this would work, Captain, is Kyle would walk the parking lot of Walmart and other stores, these bigger box stores. Primarily, he's hunting for paper receipts, receipts of purchases that were made at that store. He would find the receipts in the parking lot, and then he would go inside the store and find the item or some of the items that were listed on that receipt and then approach customer service and attempt to return those items or that item for cash.
- [34:36]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Right?
- [34:38]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
This. You know, he's no dummy. Kyle was a smart kid, and this worked for a while, but eventually his luck ran out. In June of 2013, Kyle was arrested for petty theft, running this receipt scam that he was doing. Now, while in jail, he calls his mother, phones his mother from jail. This is, I believe this was four days after he was arrested. And he's asking her to bail him out. Right? He needs somebody to come and make bail for him so he can go home. And he pleas with his mother to get him out. And look, the problem here is going to be and forever will be not just in this case, but in all the cases, a family member, a loved one of a victim, especially a mother, a father, they're always going to second guess their actions. Did I do the right thing? Did I turn my back on. On my kid? Did I turn my back on my loved one? How could I have done things differently? If I would have done things differently? Would. Would I still have. Would I still have my loved one? And I'm sure that this is something that Kyle's mother, Lynn, thinks about, and we all have regrets, and I'm sure she has regrets as well. But I. My opinion here, Captain. I think she did the right thing.
- [36:06]
Sponsor/Advertiser
She.
- [36:06]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
She basically tells him, no, you know, I'm not going to bail you out. I'm not going to bail you out today. Maybe I will tomorrow. But I think she let him sit there for the amount of time that. That he had to. And the reason why I think that this is the right thing, or at least the approach that I would take if I found myself in this situation that nobody wants to find themselves in, is this is an opportunity for that person who's locked up to get clean. Right. They can't. The. The system is set up for them not to be able to do drugs while they're in there. The other thing, too, is unless it's, you know, some inmate violence or jailhouse violence, you might be keeping your boy safe. He might be safer in there than out on the streets.
- [37:03]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Right.
- [37:04]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
I'll tell you what. I have had a personal situation where a longtime friend of mine was addicted and got caught up in something, and he got locked up in jail, and he, by his own accord, made what was one of the smarter life decisions that this guy has made. He didn't call anybody to bail him out.
- [37:27]
Sponsor/Advertiser
He.
- [37:28]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
He told. In fact, when friends and family would visit him, he said, don't bail me out. This is my one shot I have at getting cleaned up. This is the one chance that I got. And even if I can't stay clean forever, the longer I stay in here, that's adding days to my life. And the guy was at the end, and I'm happy to say that was many years ago. He's still with us today. And he managed to get clean by doing that. And so I. I hope that if. If Lynn does have regrets about this situation, I'm sure that she does. Please don't let this be one, because I think you did this in the best interest of your son, to keep your son safe so she does not help Kyle get out of jail for this. This is going to. Of course it's going to. I don't know if it made a complete break in the relationship, but they're, you know, it certainly made it so they were on less speaking terms. This is. Keep in mind, Captain, this is just about two months before August 15, 2013, when Kyle's body was found in a field near Meadow Road and Lee Court.
- [38:42]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah.
- [38:42]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
In Lehigh Acres. Now, there are a few details that are out there about this case. The Lee County Sheriff's Office did give out a few additional details, many that we've already covered here. They gave out some additional details on a podcast. This is a podcast that is conducted by Lee County Sheriff's Office that focuses in on some of their cold cases. Now, it's difficult to say how cold Kyle's case truly is. It appears to have heated up from time to time over the years. I think that the authorities do have some leads. So while the case was featured in a short episode, I'm hesitant to call this a cold case. I know that there was a big push on the 10th on the 10 year anniversary. This would be last year in August of 2023. This was a large effort by the Florida Themis Project and the Paradise After Dark podcast. There is one very strange twist in this true crime story. It is believed, or suspected would be a better word, that Kyle stole jewelry and at least one gun from his family. Of course, we know that the murder weapon in Kyle's case is a gun or guns. We know that he was shot several times.
- [40:10]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Right.
- [40:12]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
That twist came about in November of 2022. This is when Kyle's mother, Lynn, got a call from a sergeant working at the evidence facility at the Lee County Sheriff's Office. So sergeant calls Lynn asking if she had reported a gun stolen in 2013. She says yes, and then the sergeant proceeds to ask her, well, do you still want this gun back? Well, she's a little surprised because she's filed the, the stolen gun report back in 2013 and not heard anything about this gun since.
- [40:59]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Right.
- [41:00]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
What we learn, or what Lynn learns from the sergeant on the other end of the phone is that, yeah, we, we found your gun that was reported stolen and we've had it in our evidence locker since 2015. So she's getting the call six, seven years later.
- [41:17]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah. Crazy.
- [41:19]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
This is a shock to me, Captain. We've covered several Lee county cases and I have regularly been impressed with their work. But, you know, even in the best of outfits, things can and do unfortunately fall through the cracks. And that seems to be the case here.
- [41:37]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah.
- [41:39]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
So now we know what everyone has to be wondering. Could this stolen gun that also be the murder weapon?
- [41:48]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Right.
- [41:48]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
So Lynn was able to meet with the detective that was assigned to her son's Kyle's case. This was in early December 2022. She says that she didn't get as much information as she had hoped for during this meeting. Again, open investigation. There's probably some details that they don't even want to tell family. Now, she did say part of that visit with the detective included going out to the site of the crime scene where Kyle was found. And the detectives brought crime scene photos with them to the scene. They did talk to a forensic specialist. Based on the evidence, they believe that Kyle was killed where he was. Later found someone. And you know what? I'll. I'll go on record here, Captain, and I'll say someone's plural. Took him out there and killed him right there where he was found. To me, that means that I think Kyle knew these people and these people knew this area where Kyle was killed. They chose this location and this was by design to me. The way that the details were described to me, both on paper and verbally, about how he was found. It screams to me that there were multiple people involved.
- [43:15]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah. When I heard about this gun, my first thought was, did he have it on him? And was he using this gun for protection himself?
- [43:23]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah, that's. That's interesting, because when we hear that they are telling Lynn, look, we found this gun. It's been in our locker since 2015.
- [43:34]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Right.
- [43:35]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
She reports it stolen in 2013. He's killed in 2013. What we don't get is where was this gun found? That gun may have nothing to do with this crime at all, other than it's linked to the victim. In March of 2023, Lee County's major crime unit, they had already sent this gun off for some testing. It's in March of 2023 when they get lab results back about that stolen gun that belonged to Kyle's family. This is the one that sat on the shelf for over six years. And they learn then that it was not a match with the fragments of bullets that were found at the murder scene. So this gun was not involved in that shooting. It seems like it's just simply linked by the victim here. That it belonged to Kyle's family. Was reported stolen by Kyle's family. Likely was Kyle that stole the gun and probably sold it or traded it for drugs. And they found it on some other people or in some other location. Now, there are some key players here that we do need to. I was going to say discuss, but we don't know a lot about these people, so we need to at least bring them up. There was a trap house at oak Drive and 10th Avenue in Pine Manor. We've already mentioned this Pine Manor manor neighborhood. And there. This is based off of law enforcement's information. So this is. This is fact. This isn't speculation here. Inside that Pine manor area neighborhood, they know that there were at least two people. So we got, like, a small crew of people that are running drug operations in that Pine manor.
- [45:45]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Right.
- [45:45]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And we know that Kyle Burtis had ties and was associated with this area. The two known persons that were running drug operations and involved in drug operations in Pine Manor is first. These are nicknames. So we have Bebe, who is a Puerto Rican man, real name Luis Santiago, and we also have Luis's brother, Babel is, I think, his nickname, but his real name is Carlos Santiago. So they're involved in these drug operations in Pine Manor. They do have ties to Kyle Burtis and some Of Kyle's persons that he either stayed with or ran with. Now, some of the other known people that we should mention, these are less, you know, people running drugs, and the. The Santiago's were running a good amount of drugs. We're talking regularly turning over thousands of dollars of drugs. These people that I'm about to bring up Were more petty criminals and drug addicts, but they are known associates of Kyle Burtas's. One is Tatiana Martinez, who has seems to have cooperated some with police. I question how honest she's being on some of her comments. She claims to not really know what happened or who's responsible for Kyle's murder. I'm sure she's probably passed along some suspicions. I'm wondering if she actually knows more than she's saying, but maybe not directly involved herself. Who's. Now, who's to know? Until we know, we don't know. The other person is Jesus Torres. He goes by the nickname of Choo choo or Jesus Choo Choo Torres. Again, another petty criminal drug addict that was a known associate of Kyle Burtis. Captain, I believe three things very strongly after having looked at this case and discussing it with several persons close to the investigation.
- [47:59]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Right.
- [48:00]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
One, I think that Kyle's murder Has everything to do with drugs, drug money, and drug houses, and that Kyle was killed in retaliation for something that he got caught up in. He may have crossed some people he knew, Crossed the wrong people.
- [48:15]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Well, what do we do know about him? I mean, he had this habit, and when he was not clean and sober, he would live with his family, and he was stealing things from the family in order to get money for drugs. So then if you're couch surfing with sometimes friends, sometimes just acquaintances, other addicts, did he steal something from one of these individuals to try to get money for drugs, or did he steal drugs from one of these individuals? And if so, that would be a possible motive for somebody murdering him.
- [48:53]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah, I think that you and I are definitely in the same church on this one. I think that he crossed some people that were a lot more cold and evil Than he had expected at the time. And when he took from them, I think they came to take from him. And you can only squeeze so much blood from a rusty nail. The second part of this, I believe that there is more than one person involved in the murder of Kyle burtis, and that there are others that know what happened here and who is responsible.
- [49:29]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
But we've also seen when people have drug addictions, that they don't cooperate with police as often because they're essentially involved in criminal activity themselves.
- [49:43]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Exactly. The other part of this, I think, when we have these known associates, we. We have some persons that are fall well into the bad guy category, and we know their names, their identity, where they were living, a lot of what they were up to at the time. To me, that tells me that this case is solvable. So I say to the Lee County Sheriff's office, you have impressed me before. Impress me again and go out and solve this damn thing.
- [50:15]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Well, some people listening will hear this and go, well, he was a drug addict and he was involved in criminal activity. So, you know, that's the risky lifestyle he was living led to his ultimate demise. But like we've said many times on this show, the problem is his story wasn't complete, and these individuals didn't allow him to complete his story. And maybe he would have just stayed on the path he was on, or maybe he would have got things together, and maybe he would have turned his life around. And I have several people in my life that got to very dark places, and now they're inspiration to me, not just because they got clean and sober, but because their positive pillars in people's lives. And whoever did this stopped his story, and that's just not acceptable.
- [51:21]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Well, and the addiction that Kyle fell into, unfortunately, isn't something that's too far removed from any of our lives. And I'm talking about ours and the listeners. Right. Unfortunately, with the opioid epidemic, the heroin situation, the meth situation in many parts of this country, this country as a whole, most of us know somebody not too far removed from. From our very personal, very inner circle that has fallen into addiction just like Kyle did. All of us want to fight for those people. That's what Kyle's family wants here. They can't bring Kyle back. Let's get some justice. And the other thing, too, for the sake of all of us, let's get some bad people off of the streets. Before we wrap up, I want to give a shout out to some sources and to some. Some people that are important to this case. We have our friend Lauren Samples, who wrote a gangbusters article about Kyle's case for medium.com titled the Unsolved Murder of Kyle Burtis. And also the Florida Themis Project, which is a nonprofit that supports loved ones and victims of unsolved crimes with ground and dog searches for the missing, financially contributing to various types of investigative tools including DNA testing, awareness campaigns such as billboards, printed media flyers, and podcast episodes like this one here today. Kyle's case is also on the FDLE website under Unsolved Homicides and there is a link to submit tips there. Kyle Alexander Burtis was just 25 years old. He was found murdered on August 15, 2013 in a field in Lehigh Acres, Florida. The murder weapon was a gun. This gun is yet to be located. He was known to frequent the Pine Manor community in Fort Myers. Anyone with any information on Kyle's case or the individuals that we've mentioned in these episodes, I urge you to contact the Lee County Sheriff's Office at 239-477-1000 or call the Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-780-TIPS, which is 1-800-780-8477.
- [54:13]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
Want to thank you so much for joining us here in the Garage each and every week. And if you need more True Crime Garage content for your ear balls, then check us out on Patreon or Apple subscription on the Apple Podcast app. All you have to do is hit subscribe and there you go. You get the bonus content and it's a good way to treat yourself. And we should all love ourselves a little more. Treat ourselves a little more. Some great bonus content. Colonel do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners?
- [54:46]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
A little recommendation for your eyeballs here? Everyone should go and check out floridathemisproject.org that's Florida T H E M I S project.org and check out their blog. Each month they feature and highlight a Case of the month. Kyle Burtis's unsolved murder is just one of these cases featured there. Other cases include the Walker family murders and the Sims family case, one that is still unsolved over 50 years later. There are many intriguing cases to learn and read about on their blog. Once again, that is floridathemisproject.org you can find that recommendation and many other great recommendations on our recommended page on our website truecrimegarage.com and until next week, be
- [55:39]
Captain (Co-host of True Crime Garage)
good, be kind, and don't litter. Sam.
- [56:19]
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