Police release clip of 999 call reporting British man’s body find

Former Sheffield University students James Cooper, 25, and James Kouzaris, 24, were gunned down in the early hours of Saturday in a crime-ridden part of the Gulf Coast state described by police as a “no-go” area for tourists.

In the call, a woman said: “We just rode through the old projects, we saw a white dude laying, there is blood everywhere.

“He is laid out. I don’t know if he is dead or not.”

An emergency responder asked the woman to repeat herself because of the bad line.

The caller replied: “He is lying on the ground. I think he is dead, mam.”

The devastated parents of Mr Cooper yesterday described their son as a gentle, kind and compassionate man whose “humour filled every space”.

Stanley and Sandra Cooper, from Hampton Lucy, near Warwick, had been on holiday with the two young men, staying in an upmarket area of Sarasota.

In a statement, they said: “As his parents, our lives have been shattered, but through us and his friends and family he will live on. God bless you, son, heaven has another angel, but this world is a colder and poorer place without you in it.”

The couple spoke of their pride in their only son, who worked as a tennis coach in Warwickshire and once played Andy Murray in a junior tournament.

They added: “We loved our son and he loved us so strongly. We are blessed and so very proud to have him as our boy.

“A day never passed without telling each other ‘I love you’.

“He was gentle, kind, compassionate, clever and an athlete; but beyond all his achievements he was full of love. In his short life he lived it to the full and helped everyone lucky enough to know him to do the same.”

Detectives in Florida have already released video footage which showed the two friends in a Sarasota bar hours before they were murdered, talking to several women.

Officers are also following up a number of leads from photographs recovered from one of the dead men’s cameras.

It is still unclear what the two were doing in the Newtown housing project, described by locals as a very dangerous area. The resort where they had been staying is about 12 miles away from where their bodies were found.

Shawn Tyson, 16, who lives close to the murder scene, is being held on suspicion of double murder. Police said the teenager would be charged as an adult over the two murders and could face the death penalty if convicted.