NewsCovering Florida

Actions

Deputies: teen fatally beats friend with bat

Posted

LAKE WALES, Fla. (AP) - A Florida sheriff says a teenage boy has beaten another teenager to death with a baseball bat.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd tells WFLA-TV the 16-year-old beat 15-year-old Giovanni Diaz after they went into a wooded area Monday afternoon. He says the boys had gone in the woods presumably to play.
    
Judd says the 16-year-old told a witness what he did, went home and called 911. The witness found Diaz dead.
    
The suspect told a deputy that "he whaled on" Diaz and referred to him as a friend.
    
The teen has three previous battery charges and two were on Diaz. Authorities do not know why he killed the other boy and have no further details.
    
He had not been charged as of Monday night.