Tiny Tip Leads Polk Detectives To Arrest Of Accused Killer: Sheriff

BARTOW, FL — A Polk County couple accused of homicide was extradited back home Monday after being arrested by Delaware State Police on April 7.

Wesley Vazquez Andino, 28, and Adriana Oyola Del Valle, 26, were wanted in the shooting death of 34-year-old Benjamin Mason III of Bartow, who was fatally shot while riding a motorcycle.

Delaware State Police arrested them on Polk County warrants. Vazquez Andino has been charged with first-degree murder, while Oyola Del Valle was charged with accessory to a capital felony.

They were transported to Polk County on April 24, and have been indicted by a grand jury. (An earlier version of this story provided an incorrect county.)

The shooting occurred on March 26 at around 2:09 pm on Wheeler Street in unincorporated Gordon Heights, northeast of Bartow.

An autopsy revealed that a bullet entered Mason’s lower back, then traveled through his kidney, diaphragm and lung.

Witnesses were only able to describe a blue Jeep and a short Hispanic male at the scene. That information was sufficient to lead detectives to the shared home of Andino and Oyola Del Valle on Chestnut Woods Drive in Lakeland. However, the couple had already fled.

They were tracked to a home belonging to a relative of Oyola Del Valle in Wilmington, Delaware.

Following her arrest, Oyola Del Valle told a Polk sheriff's detective that they had attempted to purchase a dirt bike through the Facebook Marketplace, and paid the requested $100 deposit. After paying the deposit, she said the seller hung up on them when they called him again, then blocked their number.

The couple sought the seller of the dirt bike in Gordon Heights. Detectives said they saw Mason on the same dirt bike they'd placed a deposit on and yelled out to him but Mason drove away. As he drove off, Oyola Del Valle said Andino fired one shot at Mason.

Oyola Del Valle said that her three children were in the Jeep at the time of the shooting.

“Witnesses weren’t able to give much information, but what they did provide was just enough that the PCSO homicide detectives were able to get on the right path toward solving this senseless murder," said Polk Sheriff Grady Judd. "It was exceptional work by the detectives, but it also illustrates how even the smallest tip can help solve a crime.”