MARION COUNTY, Fla. — During a Friday morning press conference, Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods announced the arrest in the homicide of three teens, revealing that one of the suspects is as young as 12 years old.

At the Emergency Operations Center in Ocala, Woods said two male juveniles, ages 17 and 12, were charged with first-degree murder.

A third juvenile male suspect, 16, was still at large until being arrested on Saturday, April 8.

The teen was arrested by U.S. marshals in Groveland, Florida, located 30 miles west of Orlando. He is facing charges on outstanding warrants and additional charges related to the homicide investigation are forthcoming, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.

Woods said the state attorney’s office has not yet determined if the three will be charged as adults.

The juveniles did not attend the same school, Woods said.

On the night of Thursday, March 30, Marion County Sheriff’s Office deputies found a 16-year-old girl with a gunshot wound lying next to the road at SE 183rd Avenue in the town of Ocklawaha.  

Layla Silvernail was taken to the hospital in critical condition but she later died, Woods said.

The next morning, they found a 17-year-old male shot and killed, laying on the side of Southeast 188 court. An arrested affidavit provided by the Marion County Sheriff's Office stated that the victim was wearing jeans, a black hoodie, gloves and a ski mask.

The very next day, they found Silvernail’s car in a lake near Malauka Loop Trace, with another 16-year-old female inside who had also been shot and killed.

Woods said the victim was found in the trunk of the vehicle.

“The two confessed to shooting our third victim in the trunk,” Woods said, who added that at one point, all three suspects and all three victims were in the vehicle.

All six knew each other for a short time, Woods said, who did not reveal exactly why the shootings happened but did say that robbery was the motive.

He said while the shootings may not have been gang-related in nature; he did say the three accused are connected to gangs in some way. And he hinted that the victims may have been involved in previous crimes, but did not go into detail.

He commented how the nature of this particular crime is shocking.

“We were shocked and sadden by the violence,” said Woods, especially shocked by the age of the victims and the accused.

He said many people want to put the blame on something with crimes of this nature and he said it was not the guns but the people who committed the crime.

“The bad guy is going to get a gun no matter what laws you put in place. These juveniles shouldn’t possess a handgun, but they did,” he said, who revealed that one of the suspects allegedly got the firearm during a car break-in.

He also said that society, schools and parents need to do a better job of holding juveniles, in general, accountable for their actions.

“We need to hold them accountable and then hope we can change them,” Woods said.

“Now investigators were able to determine that this group of juveniles were involved in committing burglaries and robberies,” he said.

Woods stressed that just because the three have been known to commit burglary in the past, it should not be minimized, as lesser crimes do lead to violent ones, he said.

During a previous press conference earlier in the week, Woods said that all three of the teenaged victims knew each other and stated it was possible that they were part of smaller-scale neighborhood gangs.

He explained that while they are not your typical organized gangs, every community has them and they still cause violence.

“A gang is not created because they want to go to church every Sunday night. They are created because they have a lot of criminal activity,” said Woods.