MIAMI — Troopers stopped to help a Virginia man who had gotten into a traffic crash Sunday afternoon on the Palmetto Expressway near Miami Lakes. A foul odor wafted from the trunk. Inside was the body of a hip-hop artist who went missing over a week ago.
Monday afternoon Miami-Dade police detectives arrested the man they believe shot and killed Brian Trotter, 25, who disappeared from Triangle, Virginia, on Oct. 17. Robert Deupree Avery Coltrain, 25, has been charged with second-degree murder and illegal transport of human remains.
Coltrain was booked into a Miami-Dade jail Monday afternoon.
According to missing-persons reports posted on social media, Trotter disappeared after leaving with someone in a silver Acura in Triangle, a town about 30 miles outside Washington, D.C. For days, friends posted missing-persons reports urging help to find Trotter, whose hip-hop name was "Kent Won't Stop."
Then on Sunday afternoon, the Florida Highway Patrol was dispatched to a crash on the Palmetto near Northwest 154th Street. The car was a silver Acura and had been driving north when it got into the accident on the rain-soaked highway.
The Acura was towed to the parking lot of Hialeah's Westland Mall, where troopers found the body. An initial autopsy revealed Trotter had been shot to death.
At police headquarters, Coltrain refused to speak to Miami-Dade homicide detectives, who took over the investigation, according to multiple law enforcement sources. But Coltrain was allowed to call Trotter's sister — and as detectives listened in, he apologized and said the death happened in Virginia, sources said.
Because the body was found in Miami-Dade County, the case can still be prosecuted in Florida under state law.
Inside the car, investigators discovered the Glock .45-caliber pistol believed to have been used to kill the man. Detectives are still trying to determine a motive for the man's killing.
