Investigators say a 19-year-old later told his girlfriend he killed Colie Lee Daniel and hid the remains in luggage left in the Compound.
PALM BAY, FL — A 19-year-old Brevard County man told his girlfriend he had killed and dismembered a man whose remains were later found in two suitcases in Palm Bay’s remote Compound area, according to a newly filed arrest affidavit in the case.
The affidavit adds detail to a killing that moved quickly from a missing-person case in Indialantic to a homicide investigation spanning two agencies, a home search and a second arrest. Investigators say witness statements, surveillance video, blood evidence and items recovered from the scene tie Lucas Sander Jones to the death of 28-year-old Colie Lee Daniel. Jones is now being held on a murder charge after first being arrested on counts tied to disposing of the body.
According to the Palm Bay Police Department affidavit, Daniel arrived at Jones’ home on Watson Drive in Indialantic at about 5:32 p.m. on March 20 in a white Hyundai Elantra. Neighborhood surveillance cameras captured him arriving and getting out of the car. Later that night, at about 9:45 p.m., Daniel’s parents went to the house looking for him. The affidavit says Jones answered the door and told them Daniel was inside, but he would not allow Daniel’s parents or officers from the Indialantic Police Department to enter and check on him. No one made contact with Daniel that evening. When Jones’ girlfriend, Mishai Burrows, arrived, investigators say Jones told her to go inside and not say anything. Police later wrote that, while family members and officers were outside the house, Jones was inside “in the process of cleaning up the scene.”
The timeline in the affidavit says a red Honda Accord connected to Burrows was seen at 2:29 a.m. on March 21 traveling west over the Strawbridge Causeway and not returning on that trip. Later that day, cameras tracked the same car making two trips into and out of the Compound, a large undeveloped area in Palm Bay. Investigators say Jones loaded at least two gray storage totes and at least one black suitcase into the car before leaving the house. On the second outing, police say, he first went to a Lowe’s store to buy paint and then returned to nearby train tracks where he had earlier dropped a bag before going back into the Compound and dumping it there. Daniel’s parents reported him missing on March 22. Six days later, on March 28 at about 10:50 a.m., Palm Bay officers were sent to the area of 5574 Bombardier Boulevard after a report of an abandoned suitcase being circled by vultures. Officers found a black suitcase in tall grass and, a short distance away, another suitcase. Inside, the affidavit says, were partial dismembered human remains.
Investigators say one of the key breaks in the case came from an Amazon package found in a suitcase and addressed to Jones at his Watson Drive home. That led police back to the residence, where a search warrant was carried out on the night of March 28. The affidavit says officers found several red droplets and spatters consistent with human blood inside the home, and presumptive tests were positive for large amounts of blood in the hallway, living room, garage and kitchen. Burrows later returned to police on March 30 and, according to the affidavit, withdrew an earlier statement and gave a new sworn account. She told detectives that after she came back into the house on March 20, Jones said, “I killed somebody and cut him up.” She said Jones told her he had murdered Daniel with a baseball bat and cut up the body with a cleaver, saw and knife. She said the remains were placed in two suitcases and two large storage totes, and that she never saw Daniel alive that night. The affidavit says she also described blood on the tile, carpet, walls and baseboards, along with one cracked tile outside Jones’ bedroom.
The affidavit also points to what investigators believe was an effort to remove and hide evidence after the killing. Detectives wrote that Jones appeared to have visible injuries when Indialantic officers returned for a welfare check on March 21, including marks on his arms and chest, puffiness under his eyes and bruising or contusions near a shoulder and neck. Police say Burrows described Jones as highly focused on tracking and technology and said he used an AirTag, and investigators wrote that information was confirmed by more than one source. She also told detectives, according to the affidavit, that Jones had printed a list of nearby registered sex offenders and that his mother later found the list and threw it away before the first residential search. Daniel lived nearby and was likely on that list, police wrote. Investigators said Burrows told them Jones later said he killed Daniel because Daniel was a sex offender. The affidavit does not say how the two men first met, and it leaves several key questions unanswered, including exactly what happened inside the house before Daniel was killed and whether anyone else knew in advance what police say Jones was planning.
Other details in the court filing focus on the condition of the remains and the forensic work that followed. A drill bit was found in a bag with some of the remains, according to investigators, and detectives said an injury observed on the body was consistent with a drill hole similar in size to that bit. Police also wrote that Jones used a steam cleaner to remove blood from grout and other surfaces, hid blood-soaked towels in a trash can and bought paint at Lowe’s on March 21 at 1:53 p.m. in what detectives described as an attempt to conceal visible evidence on walls and trim. The affidavit says detectives later found evidence that carpet and rugs contained human blood. It also says Jones showered after the cleanup and poured Drano down drains to clear out biological material, then showed the location of microscope slides containing the victim’s DNA. On March 31, the medical examiner confirmed the remains were Daniel’s and ruled the death a homicide. The affidavit says the cause of death was still undetermined because not all of Daniel’s body had been recovered, but examiners documented extensive postmortem dismemberment, extreme mutilation and multiple blunt-force injuries to his head and extremities before death.
The case has moved in stages through the court system. Jones, who turned 19 in late March, was first jailed on charges including tampering with evidence, abuse of a dead human body and improper disposal or transport of human remains after the suitcases were found. Media reports citing jail and court records say he later posted bond on those initial charges before investigators completed a murder affidavit and took him back into custody on a second-degree murder charge. A judge later ordered that he be held without bond on the murder count. The arrest warrant affidavit, sworn March 31 and filed April 1 in Brevard County circuit court, says detectives believe the evidence shows Jones committed murder under Florida law and that he made deliberate acts before, during and after the killing. The filing says investigators believe he prepared for the attack with tools and weapons and then took steps to clean the scene, coach a witness and dispose of the remains. Prosecutors and investigators have not publicly laid out a full motive beyond what Burrows told detectives, and no public court filing reviewed here gives a full explanation of the relationship between Jones and Daniel.
The picture that emerges from the affidavit is both methodical and unfinished. Detectives say Burrows told them Jones coached her in the days after the killing on how to talk to police and how to carry on her normal routine. She said he instructed her on body language, deception and what to say to law enforcement, the affidavit states. She also told detectives about items that had not been collected during the first search, including carpet, paint, trash cans, drill bits, plumbing traps and microscope slides containing biological matter. That account gave investigators a broader picture of the cleanup and of what may still be missing. The Compound itself, long known locally as a vast, overgrown and isolated stretch of undeveloped land, became the place where the case broke open after officers followed the report of vultures hovering over luggage in the grass. By then, Daniel had been missing for nearly a week, and the search for him had turned into a homicide investigation with parts of the body still unaccounted for.
The case remained in that posture this week: Jones in custody on the murder charge, Daniel identified by the medical examiner, and detectives still working through the evidence they say links the house in Indialantic to the suitcases in Palm Bay. The next major step is the continuing prosecution in Brevard County circuit court as investigators work to account for all remains and complete the forensic record.
Author note: Last updated April 5, 2026.