You know the joke about “Florida Man?” Well, if there was ever a Florida Man, 21-year-old Michael Psilakis is that person, because he is perhaps the dumbest shit ever to (allegedly) commit a murder. Psilakis was arrested on November 2nd by Pasco County Sheriff’s deputies and charged with first-degree murder for allegedly killing a man who won thousands of dollars off of Psilakis in a card game.
It’s hard to be this bad at crime
We have all gone through the thought exercises. We watch a television show or movie in which someone does some murdering and when they get caught, we call them stupid and discuss with our friends or significant others how we would have done it differently. With Psilakis, there is no need for a moment of reflection, as literally everything he did was a complete fuck-up.
The victim, who has not been identified because of Marsy’s Law, was reported missing, prompting deputies to begin their investigation. Witnesses said the victim had been driving a Ford Taurus and was last seen on October 30th with Psilakis. Psilakis told a deputy that he had been dropped off at his mom’s house by the victim that night.
Noteworthy: the deputy saw blood seeping through Psilakis’s sock. When he asked about it, Psilakis showed him a burn blister on his shin and said – get this – that his girlfriend threw hot oil on him during a fight. That’s creative, I’ll give him that.
And there is this, which I will just quote from the Tampa Bay Times because it’s so mind-bogglingly wonderful:
Another witness told deputies he’d played cards on Oct. 29 with Psilakis and the victim, and that the victim took Psilakis for $1,000, which upset him. The next day, the witness said, Psilakis texted the witness to say he was about to play cards with the victim again, and then to say that he’d just lost another $2,500 playing cards. He also asked the witness if he should kill the victim. Psilakis used a racial slur to refer to the victim.
The witness told him not to, he told deputies, but Psilakis later called to say he was still thinking about it.
So Psilakis lost $3,500 to the victim in a card (probably poker) game and asked a friend – leaving text evidence – if he should kill him. And even when the friend said no, Psilakis was like, “Eh…we’ll see.”
Hold on, it gets worse
Not long after that, construction workers found the victim’s body in the burned-out Taurus in the woods near Key Vista Nature Park. An hour after deputies saw the car, they interviewed Psilakis’s mother, who said she saw blood in her garage.
Then, WHILE THEY WERE INTERVIEWING HIS MOM, Psilakis called her to coordinate stories in order to cover his ass. The deputies, of course, recorded the call. Psilakis then drove to see his mom while the deputies were still there, so they searched the car, found a stolen handgun, and arrested him on weapons charges. They also found a cell phone that included searches for – oh dear – “can u shoot through a seat” and “how to treat burns.”
On top of that, another witness said she found $20,000 in Psilakis’s safe and a pair of bloody underwear in her washing machine. He had also texted her October 30th to tell her he suffered a 3rd degree burn.
A shell casing at the burned car matched the gun from Psilakis’s car.
So yeah, this genius is in trouble.
