CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Florida —
Someone else has been taken to the Charlotte County Jail on murder charges related to the January killing of two people on Trails End Drive. Detectives in Charlotte County say that Justin Casagranda killed Mario Schiano and Anthony Galeotti with a gun at Mario’s house just outside of Punta Gorda.
When Casagranda’s probable cause statement was made public, it showed how deputies linked the Georgia man and two others to the crimes.
On January 24, just before 1 p.m., a family friend called 911. He told the police that he saw Kelly Schiano crying by the front gate of the house. She told the man she heard gunshots and ran away to hide. When the man walked in, he saw that both Galeotti and Mario were dead from multiple gunshot wounds. According to the deputies, several shots were fired into each man’s chest and one was fired into each man’s face.
When deputies first got there, they found several bedrooms that had been sacked. The small thing of seeing jewelry left on beds and drawers dumped. They went outside and saw cash blowing across the yard.
People who saw Mario kept tens of thousands of dollars in cash at home, they told CCSO. People said that a lot of money and drugs were stolen.
A white Audi was seen coming and going from the house with license plates read and security cameras running the day before and the day of the murder. The police found the car at a rental car shop in Georgia. This is one way they linked Casagranda to the crimes. He rented a white Audi a few days before the killings and returned it on January 28.
After weeks of looking into it, officers arrested Everett Harper, the wife of one of the victims, and Kelly Schiano for planning to kill someone.
As officers talked to Harper’s lawyer, he told them that he had been Mario’s marijuana mule and wanted to quit. Harper talked about his feelings with Casagranda, a former coworker, who told him they could “get rid of him.” According to Harper, this statement was meant to kill Mario, which the police verified.
Harper told the herders He was shocked that Kelly was okay with the plan since she knew about it. In a separate conversation, she told them she thought the plan was to rob someone. She said she had no idea about a shooting.
She told Harper that she and she knew about a big bill. They didn’t want Mario to know about it, she said. Police got texts from Kelly that show she offered Casagranda $30,000 for the job and would keep $20,000 to pay off her debt.
Sheriff Bill Prummell said that Casagranda had known the families for a long time and had even lived in the home on Trails End Drive until two years ago. Friends told the deputies that Casagranda left without giving a reason one night in 2022 and never came back.
A gun that belonged to Mario was found at Casagranda’s house in Georgia by the police. Police from Athens-Clarke County arrested him on charges of having a gun while being a convicted criminal.
When Charlotte County officers showed Casagranda the proof and accusations, he told them that the pictures and time stamps were fake. He said he left Charlotte County on the 23rd and never came back. He told the detectives that he and Mario talked for hours, cried together, and worked out problems from the past.
Casagranda’s pre-trial holding hearing is next Tuesday at noon in court.
