By Danny Valentine, Times Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
CLEARWATER — Police issued an arrest warrant for a man accused of fatally shooting a 16-year-old New Jersey runaway in July.
But police said Eustacio Pena Muthe, 21, likely fled to Mexico after the July 9 shooting.
Police said Muthe shot Jason Richard Henderson multiple times at his Clearwater residence and that property from the apartment was missing. In July, police said they did not believe it was a random act.
Clearwater police detectives are working with federal and Mexican law enforcement to determine Muthe's whereabouts.
Police ask anyone with information about Muthe to call their homicide tip line at (727) 562-4422.
Henderson attended Lenape High School in south New Jersey and, according to New Jersey state police, was arrested on robbery and drug charges. He was placed in a state facility but ran away to Florida, where he eventually settled in Clearwater, according to Clearwater police spokeswoman Elizabeth Watts.
He had been living in the apartment at Del-Ray for only a month or two when he was shot, Watts said.
On MySpace.com in January, Henderson invited a friend to join him at his new home in Florida. He was paying $550 a month for a two-bedroom apartment, he said, and was holding down two jobs, one of them in roofing.
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