Daytona Beach Police reopen 2020 case of ERAU student's suicide
The Daytona Beach Police Department has reopened its investigation into an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University student’s death, which was initially ruled a suicide.
In a federal lawsuit, the student's family claims he was killed by a roommate who also attended the university.
Alexander Bello-Ortiz was found with a gunshot wound to the head on Sept. 6, 2020, in his bedroom in a home at 941 Vernon St., according to a police report. A rifle was found on the floor nearby and a single .22-caliber shell casing was found about 4 feet from a pool of blood, the report stated.
Bello-Ortiz was taken to Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach. He showed no brain activity. The following day, Bello-Ortiz was declared dead and his family planned to donate his organs, according to the report.
Bello-Ortiz, 22, attended ERAU and served as a United States Air Force Reserve Officer training corps cadet. An online obituary stated Bello-Ortiz was born in Fairfax, Virginia, and described him as “an overall amazing, kind-hearted, optimistic and joyful individual. Alex will be missed dearly by all who knew him.”
Detectives did not find the death to be suspicious and the medical examiner’s office ruled it a suicide, according to the report.
But on Sept. 6, 2022, the young man's parents, Maria Lourdes Ortiz and Harold Dolph, filed a federal lawsuit against John Burlein, Bello-Ortiz's roommate; Burlein's father, Joseph Burlein; and others.
The lawsuit claims that John Burlein shot Bello-Ortiz and then called his father, Joseph Burlein, a retired Air Force captain.
“On the phone, moments after (the shooting) occurred, John admitted to his father that he shot Alex,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit states that Joseph Burlein “directed John to reposition the gun and tell an accompanying story to make Alex’s shooting look like a suicide.”
"More than five minutes after shooting Alex, John finally called 911 to falsely report that Alex had allegedly ‘collapsed’ at home while Alex was alone in his room,” according to the lawsuit.
“To this day, John Burlein has not been arrested or prosecuted for admittedly murdering Alexander Bello-Ortiz," the lawsuit states. "Nor has anyone been brought to justice for their role in the coverup or conspiracy.”
In a response to the lawsuit in federal court, John Burlein and Joseph Burlein stated there was no coverup or conspiracy and John Burlein said he did not commit a crime. The response described the death as a "tragic suicide."
The lawsuit also states that John Burlein, from Titusville, and Robert Kramer, from California, were both Air Force ROTC cadets and moved in with Alex Bello-Ortiz in August 2020.
The lawsuit states that less than a month after moving in, John Burlein began causing problems.
“John’s animosity and threats toward Alex are captured in audio and video from cameras around the Vernon Street home, according to the lawsuit.
As tensions rose, Bello-Ortiz expressed concerns to his family.
According to the lawsuit, Bello-Ortiz disapproved of John Burlein using drugs in the home and bringing his drug-using friends to the home.
The day Bello-Ortiz was shot
The lawsuit states that John Burlein and his friend, Henry Lax, were caught on a house security camera conspiring to break into Bello-Ortiz's room and steal a rifle that Bello-Ortiz had been keeping for an acquaintance.
On Sept. 6, around 11:43 a.m., roommate Robert Kramer went out for a jog and John Burlein stayed home. Within minutes, Bello-Ortiz and Burlein began to argue, escalating to a physical confrontation, the lawsuit states.
“Alex pleaded to John to get off him,” the lawsuit stats.
“John taunted Alex with a gun,” and then at 11:56 a.m. John Burlein shot Bello-Ortiz in the head, the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit states that audio recordings from Ring cameras recorded an exchange between John Burlein and another person who appeared to be his father on speaker phone.
“Did you (expletive) kill him?” one person asked.
“I did.”
“(Expletive)”
“What if he’s not dead?”
“Alex is dead.”
The father and son invented the suicide story, the lawsuit states.
Five minutes after shooting Bello-Ortiz, John Burlein called 911 and claimed that Bello-Ortiz had collapsed, the lawsuit states. John Burlein did not mention anything about shooting him or that he heard a gunshot or that a gun was involved, the lawsuit stated.
The lawsuit states that a day before the shooting, “John told his friends, Brenden Rubio and Robert Kramer, that John wanted to shoot Alex."
The lawsuit states that “John’s animosity and threats towards Alex are captured in audio and video from cameras around the Vernon Street home.”
Attorney Kendall Coffey, who represents Lourdes Ortiz and Dolph in the federal lawsuit, said in a phone interview that police should have investigated further.
“I think the explanation of suicide was accepted and it shouldn’t have been,” Coffey said. "There’s no note for suicide, no history of depression, no indications of anything but a young man with a great future who's recognized for his positive attitude and motivation.”
There were allegations that Bello-Ortiz consumed hallucinogenic mushrooms the night he was shot. Referred to as shrooms, they carry the risk of setting off mental and emotional problems and can cause people who ingest them to see, hear and feel things that are not real, the police report stated.
“The actual toxicology report utterly negated that,” Coffey said.
Lourdes Ortiz said her son was health conscious and liked to cook using mushrooms, but did not do drugs and didn’t even drink Coke.
She said he had been planning to drive down to Miami to visit family before he died.
“What I want to see with the lawsuit is that the truth comes out. I want a full, complete, actually, I demand a full, complete investigation on my son’s death. This will lead for justice to be done.”
The lawsuit lists the following: count one, intentional battery/murder claim against John Burlein; count two, negligence claim against John Burlein in the alternative; count three, civil conspiracy against defendants John Burlein, Joseph Burlein, Greg Trax, Brenden Rubio, Henry Lax and Robert Kramer; count four, intentional infliction of emotional distress against John Burlein and Joseph Burlein.
On Thursday, when The News-Journal requested any audio recordings and video in the case, the police department declined to provide them, writing the case was under investigation. Police spokeswoman Carrie McCallister wrote it had been reopened after the family said they had found new evidence. When asked for more details about the new evidence, McCallister did not respond.
The original police report
A police report provides a different account of the shooting.
John Burlein, 22, told police he was in the living room playing music around noon on Sept. 6, 2020, when he heard a noise from Ortiz’s room, like something fell. Burlein went to check and saw Bello-Ortiz on the floor, bleeding from his ears and mouth, the report stated. He called for help.
The second roommate, Robert Kramer, 23, also a student at ERAU, told police he had been gone for about 20 minutes and returned to find Burlein on the floor with Bello-Ortiz, the report stated. Kramer then helped to perform CPR on Bello-Ortiz.
Investigators learned that Bello-Ortiz had Ring cameras and checked the devices and enhanced the audio. The Ring audio provided the investigators some more information.
Investigators heard in one living room audio recording “unintelligible mumbling” believed to be from Bello-Ortiz in the audio and heard Burlein reply, “I don’t even know what you're saying,” according to the report.
The recording also recorded someone asking Bello-Ortiz, “Did you do drugs?” to which he responded, “Some,” according to the report.
In another living room recording, Bello-Ortiz states, “I got a great idea, let’s (expletive) ugh do shrooms,” the report stated.
In an audio recording from the backyard, police hear a grunt and mumbling. Then Bello-Ortiz yells “Bon Voyage. Oh.” Police then hear "an apparent gunshot," followed by what sounds like a rifle falling to the ground, according to the report.
Backyard Ring video shows that Bello-Ortiz "was in a deranged state prior to the shooting. Alexander Bello-Ortiz was walking around the backyard in his underwear, talking to himself. Alexander Bello-Ortiz appeared to be in a hallucinatory state," the report stated.
'No signs of wanting to hurt himself'
Burlein and Kramer told police that Bello-Ortiz was “in good spirits for the past day,” the report stated.
Police called Bello-Ortiz’s mother in Virginia and she said she had spoken to him that morning and he seemed “fine,” the report stated.
Investigators checked Bello-Ortiz's cellphone and found no threats toward him, the report said. The report noted that they found the phone contained the downloaded Psilocybin Mushroom Handbook.
An autopsy report listed the cause of death as complications of gunshot wound to the head and the manner of death a suicide. Next to “How incident occurred” the report stated “Shot self.” Besides the gunshot wound, the autopsy found a faint purple contusion on the left hand proximal to the first knuckle, the reports state.
Tests did not find “basic drugs of abuse” and a follow-up test for psilocin did not find any in his system, the report stated. The report also noted that given the time the blood was in storage and a lack of stabilizing additives, the “interpretation of these results should be limited.”
Police tested Bello-Ortiz's hands for gunshot residue and found none, the report stated. But the report stated that the absence of the residue did not rule out that he had handled a firearm or fired one.
On Sept. 9, 2020, police interviewed Henry Lax, a friend who said that Bello-Ortiz got the rifle from someone he had helped move out of state. The friend had told Bello-Ortiz and at least one other helper they could have any item they wanted for assisting him.
Lax said he would see the rifle in Bello-Ortiz's bedroom and said that Bello-Ortiz bought ammunition the Friday before the shooting.
Lax said that “Bello-Ortiz did not show any signs of wanting to hurt himself or others,” the report stated.
Lax also said the roommates got along well and “were never involved in a verbal or physical altercation.”
Lax said that prior to the shooting, Bello-Ortiz was acting “out of character” because while speaking to family members, he was talking abnormally fast and using foul language.
Lax said that "it was learned that" Kramer had to push open the front door because a couch was behind it, according to the report. Lax also stated that the roommates were cleaning the house that morning and furniture gets moved around when they clean, the report stated.
Lax said he was not aware of any drug use, but stated that Bello-Ortiz "did drink alcohol on occasions," according to the report.
Police stated that Bello-Ortiz's bedroom “was not in disarray as if a struggle had occurred.” Detectives did not see any injuries on Burlein.
The report states there were no signs of Bello-Ortiz's death being suspicious. Police also discussed the case with prosecutors in the State Attorney's Office homicide unit and "there were no recommendations made by their office," the report stated.
On July 1, 2021, the police were called back to the home after Harold Dolph, who is identified as the stepfather of Bello-Ortiz in the obituary, told them he found a spent .22-caliber shell casing in the rear bedroom underneath a dresser. The casing was placed into property and evidence at the police station, the report stated.
Burlein and Kramer did not return calls for comment.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: ERAU student's family accuses roommate of murder, police reopen case
