Eddy D. Vasquez, 27, was shot in the torso near the Publix on Third Street S. around 4 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 9. He died from his injuries about two hours later at Bayfront Medical Center.
Vasquez lived in Gainesville but graduated from USF St. Petersburg in 2010 with a degree in business administration. According to the Tampa Bay Times, he was back in town for a wedding and went bar hopping with friends afterward. One of these friends was Andres Rodriguez Torres (other news sources have referred to him as Andres J. Torres), 26, who had attended USFSP with Vasquez. According to police, he was also Vasquez’s killer.
Details of the event are unclear but investigators believe the shooting occurred after a fight broke out between the two men. Police arrested Torres at his apartment, 324 Fourth St. S., around 8:45 a.m. Saturday and charged him with second degree murder. The Times article says Torres was also charged with armed kidnapping for holding a witness hostage at his apartment. As of Monday afternoon, specifics of the kidnapping have not been released. According to other reports, Torres was uncooperative with authorities and police recovered a gun from his home.
Vasquez was born in Chicago but raised in Ecuador. His family moved to St. Petersburg when he about 14. He attended Lakewood High School’s Center for Advanced Technologies off 54th Avenue S. He most recently served as the Director of International Sales for Grooveshark, a free music streaming website based in Gainesville, where he’d worked for about two-and-a-half years.
While attending USFSP, he appeared in an advertisement for transfer students. Testimonials from across the Web revere Vasquez as smart, outgoing, hardworking and an all-round good person.
Funeral services for Eddy D. Vasquez will be at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 12 at Anderson-McQueen funeral home, 2201 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. N.
