Stanley Fritzson is tired of waiting to bring his only son’s killer to justice.
The wait has been torture, he said. Cameron Fritzson was shot to death nearly 15 years ago outside Beyond Billiards, a bar in a strip mall on University Drive in Davie. The man who shot him, Jeffrey Chidsey, faced trial twice with no resolution.
Chidsey, 38, is scheduled to go in front of a new jury in September. Until then, he is free on a $50,000 bond, a freedom he only surrendered for a few months in 2018 when he was arrested on a drunk driving charge. He has had no other trouble with the law, and no accusations of violent behavior.
“He’s not a violent person,” said his lawyer, Michael Gottlieb.
The case first went to jury selection in late 2015, but the judge was forced to declare a mistrial when jurors openly worried that their addresses would be available to the public, the defendant and his family.
The following year, a jury of six listened to the evidence and was unable to agree on the central question of the case — was Chidsey a hothead who escalated a fight on Aug. 17, 2009, by leaving the bar and getting a gun from his car? Or was he acting in self-defense against Fritzson, 21, a larger, stronger man who all but dared him to use deadly force?
“If you pull that gun on me, you’d better use it,” Fritzson allegedly told Chidsey before the fatal shot was fired.
“He shot the gun into the ground three times and yelled ‘back off,’” Gottlieb said.
Chidsey did not testify at his trial, but jurors heard his testimony from an earlier Stand Your Ground hearing.
Witnesses told the jury that Chidsey started and escalated the fight in the bar, but Chidsey said Fritzson saw the gun and advanced toward him. Whether Chidsey had a right to defend himself was a question that split the jury 4-2.
Fritzson’s father is aware of the reasons for the delay since the 2016 verdict, though he rejects them in terms that can’t be published.
The original prosecutor on the case retired. The defense lawyer was elected to the Florida House of Representatives, making it difficult to schedule trials when the state Legislature is in session. The retrial was set for mid-2020 when the COVID pandemic struck, and with that came a new emphasis on trying cases in which the defendant was in custody.
All those factors conspired to keep Chidsey from facing a new jury, either to face justice for his crime or to clear his name once and for all.
“You never can put certainty on anything about this case,” said Fritzson, the victim’s father, a retired trucker who, at 65, lives alone with his 90-year-old mother. “My son was not a little guy. Six-foot-one. Solid muscle. He was a great kid. He liked people. He had a whole entourage with him that night at Beyond Billiards.”
Despite his frustration with the delays, Fritzson vowed to attend each day of the trial in his wheelchair.
“He was my only son,” he said.
With permission from the court, Chidsey is in New Mexico this month working on a construction project with his father, according to court records.
Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4457.
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