Teen Dead, 2 Injured After Crashing Stolen Maserati In St. Pete: PCSO

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — A teenage boy is dead, and two others are hurt — one with life-threatening injuries — after stealing a Maserati and crashing it in unincorporated St. Petersburg early Sunday morning, authorities said.

Deputies originally responded to a burglary in progress on 58th Avenue North around 3:20 a.m., according to a news release from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.

As the suspect in that crime was taken into custody, the agency’s helicopter unit spotted three unrelated suspects approaching a 2016 silver Maserati parked nearby in a driveway around 62nd Avenue North and 28th Street North. One of them — later identified as a 15-year-old boy — used his T-shirt to open the car’s unlocked door.

“Obviously, he didn’t want to put fingerprints or DNA on the car,” Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said during a Sunday news conference.

The teen found the keys inside the car and got into the driver’s seat, while the other two teens got into the passenger and backseat of the car. They drove away from the home and headed east on 62nd Street North with the headlights off, the sheriff’s office said.

Deputies on the ground turned on their lights and tried to stop the teens, but they sped away, going more than 80 mph in a 35-mph zone, the sheriff said. At that point, the deputies turned off their lights and stopped pursuing the stolen car.

The teens continued speeding away until the driver lost control of the car, which drove over a curb, hit a business sign and flipped over.

“These are young kids. They’re inexperienced drivers, no driver’s license, driving at 3:30 in the morning, 80 mph and the car starts fishtailing all over the road,” Gualtieri said. “He had no control over the car at that point.”

Deputy James Sevostjanov and K9 Deputy Cohen Zanandrie, who were several blocks behind the boys, were the first to respond to the crash and provided first aid to the teens.

Mario Bonilla, 15, in the passenger seat was pronounced dead at the scene.

A 16-year-old in the backseat was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, while the 15-year-old driver was critically injured in the crash.

While PCSO released the names of the two injured teens, it is Patch's policy not to identify those in the juvenile court system. It’s not known whether the surviving teens will face charges, and, if they do, whether they’ll be charged as a juvenile or an adult.

Two of the boys were students at St. Petersburg High School, while the other attended Northeast High School, Gualtieri said, though he didn’t say which teen attended which school.

“None of these kids have criminal histories to speak of,” he added, though one had a misdemeanor arrest in June. The sheriff didn’t say what this misdemeanor charge was for.

All three boys were stopped by Kenneth City police on Sept. 11 around 4 a.m., the sheriff said. “All wearing black clothes, hoodies, faces covered, walking in a residential area.”

Though they weren’t charged that morning, police took their photographs and called their parents, Gualtieri said. “Based on that and this (crash), these kids were on that bad path of what we see with these kids time and again. They’re out in the middle of the night. They’re looking for cars to break into. They’re looking for cars to steal and these are crimes of opportunity.”

The teens’ parents, who are “actively involved,” saw them all at home when they went to bed Saturday night, the sheriff said. The boys later snuck out without their knowledge.

“So, you can only imagine the angst of those parents…when we knocked on their door and told them one of your sons is deceased and another of your sons is probably going to be deceased,” he said.

Gualtieri added that the parents had noticed some “concerning behavior” recently and were “trying to work through it,” including moving one of the teens to a different high school.

He also admonished the Maserati’s owner who “didn’t care enough about (his car) to lock the door and put away his keys.”

The sheriff said, “People shouldn’t leave their car doors unlocked or leave their keys in the car, but it’s their property. If that’s what they choose to do, they are not ‘doing anything wrong.’ What’s wrong is, is these kids are out in the middle of the night being opportunistic and stealing people’s cars and driving 80 mph and not having a driver’s license and not knowing what they do, and unfortunately, one has died, one is most likely going to die and another one has some pretty serious injuries.”