The 2017 murder trial over who killed Matthew Bonnett during a robbery that netted the criminals involved a total of $250 ended in a mistrial on Jan. 25 at the Monroe County Courthouse in Key West.
After a three-week trial covered gavel-to-gavel by Court TV, the jury spent five hours in deliberations but failed to reach a unanimous verdict over whether Franklin Tyrone Tucker plunged the knife into Bonnett. Judge Mark Jones declared a mistrial.
The jury’s vote was 11-1 in favor of a guilty verdict, according to a source familiar with the outcome.
Monroe County State Attorney Dennis Ward said his office won’t back down.
“A retrial is necessary to provide a clear resolution to this case,” Ward said in a statement after the verdict. “We owe it to the victims and the community to ensure justice is served.”
The State Attorney’s Office has already started preparing for the retrial, spokesman Steve Torrence said.
The next hearing is set for March 7.
Tucker, 52, is fending off charges of murder, robbery, aggravated assault and battery, all connected to the murder that occurred at what’s been dubbed “the Treehouse,” the roof of a home on Stock Island where people were apparently living on Nov. 17, 2017, when Bonnett was fatally stabbed and Paula Belmonte survived being slashed.
Since then, the case has been called the “Treehouse murder trial,” with Court TV including it as one of their picks of one of the “most compelling” trials across the U.S.
Viewers were glued to the coverage of the trial, which was made even more of a spectacle as Tucker represented himself.
The network had a camera set up inside the Monroe County courtroom in Key West, a couple of rows behind the prosecutors’ table.
One afternoon during a hearing held without the jury present, trial viewers began commenting that they could hear prosecutors conferring at the table due to a hot mic.
Prosecutors said it all started with a robbery Tucker and an accomplice had planned, but then the night blew up into deadly violence.
“This case is of great importance, not only because of the crime’s severe nature but also due to its impact on the victims, their families and our community,” said Ward. “Our commitment to seeking justice for Matthew Bonnett and Paula Belmonte remains unwavering. My office remains dedicated to upholding justice and ensuring that the legal process is conducted with the highest standards of ethics, fairness and integrity.”
Tucker, who has been very active on social media since his release, is also ready to head back to a second trial.
While on a layover in Las Vegas this week on his way home to Oregon post-trial, Tucker posted a photo of himself posing beneath a sign that read, “What happens here only happens here.”
Tucker called his criminal case courtroom fight a gamble.
“It shouldn’t be a gamble but it is and maybe I’m crazy but I believe (in) the truth so I’ll be ready for round 2, cause I know I’m right and I didn’t do this so I’m going to put my faith in those 12 people again,” Tucker posted.
Tucker became a cause célèbre of sorts, with Page Six continuously covering his personal life and murder case – which melded in 2019 when he was released from the county jail on Stock Island on a $2 million bond after finding a girlfriend while locked up pre-trial.
Tucker married Lauren Jenai, the ex-wife of CrossFit founder Greg Glassman, and Tucker’s old high school friend when they lived in Philadelphia. Jenai bills herself, and is referred to in tabloid reports, as co-founder of the wildly successful training method. But Glassman’s attorneys have said that’s overstating her involvement.
In July 2021, Page Six reported that the couple were living apart, after one year of marriage.
Tucker’s Facebook profile lists his relationship status as “It’s complicated.”
