Federal law enforcement agents arrested a man Wednesday in connection with a shooting in a Delray Beach neighborhood last week that killed a homeless man.
Janel Tassy, 28, of Delray Beach, is accused of shooting to death James Apollonio, 54, in the Rainbow Homes neighborhood, near the 1200 block of Southwest 22nd Avenue, about 12:30 a.m. Feb. 3. Tassy was arrested Wednesday by U.S. Marshals in Miami, the city said in a news release Thursday evening.
Apollonio was seen on surveillance video shortly after midnight knocking on the door of a home in the 2000 block of Northwest 21st Court, then looking into that home’s mailbox, according to a probable cause affidavit for Tassy’s arrest. That home belonged to Tassy and his family.
Tassy was seen on video coming out of the home with a gun less than 10 minutes later, then pacing around before following the only other pedestrian in the area, later identified as Apollonio, according to the affidavit.
The initial 911 call to Delray Beach Police came from within Tassy’s home that night. Just before 12:30 a.m., Tassy’s father called 911 to report that an unidentified man had been at his front door and possibly had a gun, the affidavit said.
When officers arrived to investigate, they weren’t able to speak to Tassy’s father who called. A next door neighbor told police that about 30 minutes earlier, a man, later identified as Tassy, walked by him multiple times and asked if he had “seen anyone white walking by,” according to the affidavit.
Officers searched the neighborhood until they found Apollonio lying on his side in the grass near a home in the 1200 block of Southwest 22nd Avenue, the affidavit said, about a quarter of a mile from Tassy’s home. He had been shot in the left side of his chest and was pronounced dead there.
Later the morning of the shooting, a man who lives on the same block as Tassy called police after he got home from work and reported that someone had broken into his home. Officers found medical papers of Apollonio’s inside the man’s home, the affidavit said, and it appeared Apollonio was wearing the man’s clothes when he was found dead.
An officer who arrived at the shooting scene recognized Apollonio from a call several hours earlier that same day, where he had been looking into people’s cars in a different neighborhood, the affidavit said.
Tassy was held in the Palm Beach County jail as of Thursday night on a first-degree murder charge.