Chester Whitmor Ratliff Jr, 51, of Saint Augustine, Florida, was found dead in his fifth-wheel trailer on State Road 16 on July 29, 2017. Investigators determined he had been shot in the head and that the fatal bullet had been fired from outside the trailer.

Detectives traced the case to a nearby resident, 43-year-old Albert Hamilton Dean III. Neighbors reported frequent gunfire from Dean’s property; Dean admitted buying a rifle and a suppressor and said he had fired several shots from his back porch the night before Ratliff’s body was discovered. The rifle was later identified as stolen from Jacksonville. Dean was charged with manslaughter with a firearm and dealing in stolen property and pleaded no contest in March 2019. In May 2019 Circuit Judge Howard Maltz sentenced Dean to seven years for manslaughter and a concurrent seven years for the stolen-property charge.

Few details are available about Ratliff’s life beyond his nickname, Chet, and where he lived; the circumstances that led to his being at that trailer remain unclear.