Graduates’ killer was freed early in blunder

James Kouzaris, 24, and James Cooper, 25, were shot dead by Shawn Tyson after they drunkenly walked into a rundown public housing estate in Sarasota in the early hours of April 16 last year.

Tyson, who sports a tattoo of the word “savage” on his chest, will spend his life in prison without parole after being convicted of two counts of first degree murder.

The killer, who turned 17 on the first day of his trial, avoided the death penalty because of his age.

The families of the two friends expressed anger at the fact he was released from juvenile detention a day before he killed them.

Tyson had been arrested on April 7 for shooting at a car, but because of an administrative error he was released into his mother’s care, subject to house arrest, on April 15.

Less than 24 hours later he shot Mr Cooper, a tennis coach from Hampton Lucy, near Warwick, and Mr Kouzaris, a town planner from Northampton.

The friends, who had met at Sheffield University as undergraduates, were on holiday with Mr Cooper’s parents in upmarket Longboat Key when they were killed.

In a statement, the two families said: “It is a fact that we were given a life sentence when our sons were so brutally and needlessly taken from us.

“Ours is a life sentence, with no chance of parole from a broken heart, and a shattered soul.

“The agonising and searing pain we have experienced will continue until our sentence is at an end.

“The evil of the killer is one thing, but the fact is, he would not have been on the streets had instructions to keep him incarcerated been passed from one judge to another.”

The court also heard emotional statements from two friends, Joe Hallett and Paul Davies.

Mr Hallett addressed Tyson personally, saying: “You have failed in life – you have been failed by your family, your friends, the educational system, your local community. But those failings don’t excuse your actions.”

It took the jury two hours to convict Tyson of two counts of murder in the first degree.

Before sentencing, he was asked by Judge Rick De Furia if he had anything to add, to which he replied simply: “No.”

When Mr Kouzaris and Mr Cooper wandered into a housing project known as The Court, they were confronted by Tyson, who tried to rob them.

The men pleaded to go home, but the teenager, then 16, shot one then the other.

Tyson’s father Tyrone said outside court: “To the Kouzaris and Cooper families, our deepest sympathies go out to them.”