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Jason Drake's motive remains unclear, they say
Former U.S. Marine Jason Drake of St. Cloud allows Albanian children to touch
his head inside a NATO run refugee camp in Stenkovac near Skopje, Macedonia in
1999. Drake shot and killed two political consultants before killing himself
last week. (Eric Draper, Associated
Press / April 7, 1999)
A former U.S. Marine shot and killed two political consultants before killing
himself last week but investigators still cannot say why, the Orange County
Sheriff's Office announced Monday.
Forensic evidence identified Jason
Drake as the killer of Republican strategists Rafael "Ralph" Gonzalez and David
Abrami, sheriff's Cmdr. Joe Picanzo said.
"What prompted him to go in and
commit that crime remains undetermined and may never be known," Picanzo said.
"We have had so many different and conflicting statements from people."
All three men died in Gonzalez's home on Hickory Oak Boulevard on Aug. 21, but
the bodies were not discovered until Thursday.
"All three associated
socially and professionally to some degree," said Picanzo, who did not know how
the three met.
Gonzalez, 39, was the president of Strategum Group and a
former head of the Republican Party in Georgia. He managed U.S. Rep. Tom
Feeney's 2002 campaign and the 2003 Orlando mayoral campaign of advertising
executive Pete Barr.
Abrami, 36, an attorney who previously worked with
Orlando political consultant Doug Guetzloe, had a room in Gonzalez's house. He
graduated from the University of Central Florida and Washington & Lee
University School of Law and clerked for a federal judge in Alabama before
practicing antitrust law in Atlanta, according to his online
resume.
Drake, 30, a graduate of St. Cloud High School, installed tile
and wood flooring and lived in east Orange County, according to family
members.
A handgun and ammunition found in a backpack near his body
belonged to Drake, according to the Sheriff's Office. Picanzo said Drake did not
leave a suicide note.
"The investigator told me this morning, and I'm
having a hard time believing it," Drake's stepfather, George VanDriessch, said
in a telephone interview. "The guy was the most upstanding guy I ever met --
you'd want to salute him when he walked up to you."
Gonzalez was buried
Monday in Miami.
A memorial service for Abrami is scheduled for 2 p.m.
today at First Presbyterian Church of Orlando,106 E Church St., according to his
family.
"The family and friends of David Abrami are overwhelmed by the
outpouring of prayers and love expressed in celebration of David's life," they
said in a written statement. "This support has been extremely helpful in getting
through this very difficult time."
Drake, who served in Kosovo with the
Marines in 1999, will be buried Sunday or Monday in Rutherfordton,
N.C.
"He'll be buried in the family plot where the soldiers in our family
have been buried since the Revolutionary War," said his aunt, Cynthia
VanDriessche
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The Police State 
