Left inset: Ruben Whitworth (Broward County Sheriff’s Office). Right inset: Jordan Dowdy (GoFundMe). Background: The One Hope United boys group home in Oakland Park, Fla., where Ruben Whitworth allegedly stabbed and killed Jordan Dowdy (WPLG/YouTube).
A Florida teenager is facing criminal charges as an adult for allegedly stabbing a 14-year-old inside the group home where they both lived during a fight over a PlayStation, cops say.
Ruben Whitworth, 16, was booked and charged Thursday with second-degree murder with a weapon for the Aug. 25 killing of Jordan Dowdy, who was found fatally stabbed that Monday afternoon at a residence in the 5400 block of Northeast Third Avenue in Oakland Park, according to local police.
Dowdy’s mother told FOX and ABC affiliate WSVN that her son allegedly had problems with Whitworth in the past, which led to Dowdy being threatened, she said.
“Jordan asked him one day, ‘Ruben, would you like some mozzarella sticks?’ and he told [my son], ‘No, shut the ‘F’ up, or I’m going to stab you and kill you,'” Tiffany Simpson alleged to WSVN about Dowdy and Whitworth.
“Two weeks later, he ended up dead,” Simpson said.
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A caretaker at the One Hope United foster home was there at the time and found the two teens fighting before the stabbing unfolded in front of her, cops say.
“I need paramedics immediately,” the caretaker said, according to WSVN. “Where was he stabbed?” a dispatcher asked.
“I don’t see the knife right now, I had to break it up and I had to get involved with this situation,” the caretaker said. “Talk to me. Are you with me?” the caretaker can be heard saying to Dowdy, per WSVN.
Broward County court records describe Dowdy’s murder as “dangerous,” “depraved,” and without “premeditation,” according to ABC affiliate WPLG.
Bobbie L. Pecora, a neighbor of the group home, told the outlet that she met the teen earlier this year and had a conversation with him. “I said, ‘Hey, you are new over there. How is everything going?’ And he said, ‘It’s scary!'” Pecora recalled.
“He was terrorized before he was murdered,” Pecora alleged, claiming she saw cops at the home multiple times in relation to events involving Dowdy.
“The kid kept threatening him,” Simpson told WSVN. “I expressed to multiple people who were here within the home with him.”
Whitworth is reportedly scheduled to appear in court later this month. He is being held at the Broward County Main Jail in Fort Lauderdale without bond.
