A Louisiana man who advertised his bike for sale on social media was fatally shot at the weekend after meeting up with a potential buyer.
Joseph Vindel, 29, vanished after leaving his New Orleans home with the dirt bike around 10 a.m. Sunday to meet 20-year-old Jalen Harvey in the town of Harvey, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lopinto said at a press conference.
“Mr. Vindel never returned from that transaction,” the sheriff said.
The victim had listed the bike on Facebook Marketplace for $2,800.
Vindel’s family filed a missing persons report in New Orleans after he failed to return home. Investigators then found a text message exchange between Vindel and Harvey discussing the bike sale, Lopinto said.
The messages led cops to Harvey’s apartment in a complex in Harvey, where they found Vindel’s dirt bike on an outside patio.
During the search, officers came in contact with Harvey, who admitted to shooting Vindel multiple times in the latter’s car, the sheriff said.
Harvey allegedly drove off in the victim’s vehicle and abandoned it with Vindel’s body on the backseat. The suspect then drove the dirt bike back to the apartment complex, cops said.
Harvey was arrested Monday on charges of first-degree murder, armed robbery and obstruction of justice.
“He was loved by everyone and didn’t deserve this,” Vindel’s distraught father, Lindsey Vindel, told WWL-TV.
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Sheriff Lopinto expressed his disbelief that the victim — who had just obtained his real estate license and was beginning a career as a realtor — was murdered over a dirt bike.
“It is a $2,800 dirt bike; it is not anything that anybody should be shot over,” Lopinto said.