A career criminal is facing the death penalty after admitting he murdered a child in his father’s Florida nail salon more than a decade ago.
Anthawn Ragan, 31, pleaded guilty on Thursday to 14 felonies including robbery, assault and first-degree murder for fatally shooting 10-year-old Aaron Vu in 2013.
Ragan was also charged with attempted murder for shooting and injuring Vu’s father, Hai Vu, while robbing his business. Last year, he was spared the death penalty for a separate murder charge and sentenced to life in prison.
Surveillance footage from the nail salon inside a shopping center in Biscayne Gardens, north Miami, shows Ragan and an accomplice barging in with their guns drawn.
They ordered customers and staff to give them money while threatening them at gunpoint, collecting a little more than $300, according to prosecutors. Later in the video, as the two men leave the salon, Ragan can be seen firing shots back inside.
Vu and his father were struck and taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. There, the 10-year-old boy was pronounced dead.
Ragan waived his trial on Thursday which would have involved jurors deciding whether or not he was the shooter who entered the business and opened fire.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office has not waived the death penalty, meaning Ragan could still be sentenced to the most severe capital punishment.
Aaron Vu was shot dead at the age of 10 in his father’s nail salon in Miami, Florida, in 2013
Anthawn Ragan (pictured in court), 31, finally pleaded guilty to 14 felonies including robbery, assault and first-degree murder for fatally shooting the little boy on November 22, 2013
Ragan (pictured in his police booking photograph) was also charged with attempted murder for shooting and injuring Vu’s father, Hai Vu, while robbing his business. Last year, he was spared the death penalty for a separate murder charge and sentenced to life in prison
He also waived his right to a jury for the penalty phase, which means his punishment will solely be decided by presiding Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez.
In May, jurors opted to spare Ragan the death penalty after convicting him for killing 21-year-old Luis Perez at a motel, just weeks before he shot Vu.
That shooting took place in the same neighborhood, just one mile down the road from the nail salon.
It was part of a crime spree committed by Ragan in November 2013, when he was also involved in an armed robbery at a Royal Castle.
Prosecutors in Perez’s murder case noted that Ragan skipped away like a child after shooting Perez in the motel.
At the time of Vu’s murder, Miami-Dade Police Spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta told NBC Miami: ‘It’s sad, tragic, that the child was in the business at the time the crime occurred. It’s senseless for an innocent 10-year-old to lose his life.’
A client of the nail salon who left flowers and a teddy bear at a makeshift memorial for Vu told the outlet at the time he was ‘helpful and kind’ and that ‘he was sweet.’
Vu was murdered in his father’s nail salon after Ragan opened fire as he was leaving. The little boy’s father, Hai Vu, was also struck and injured but survived
Surveillance footage from the nail salon shows Ragan and an accomplice barging into the building, located in a shopping center in northern Miami, with their guns drawn
After collecting a little more than $300 from customers and staff, Ragan can be seen firing into the store as he leaves. One of the shots and the muzzle flash from the gun are pictured
According to Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation records, Ragan has been booked into the county’s Pre-Trial Detention Center since November 26, 2013, with an enormous rap sheet.
The sheer number of his charges may have contributed to the murder trials taking more than a decade to proceed.
His criminal history includes five separate robbery charges, all while armed with a deadly weapon, various charges of assault and battery with a firearm, four first-degree murder charges and one attempted murder charge.
The career criminal also has many other, less serious charges on his record, such as several counts of criminal mischief, resisting arrest, obstructing a fire from being extinguished and lewd or lascivious exhibition at a correctional facility.
