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Christopher Atkins pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced at age 15 to 40 years in prison for the 2023 shooting death of Camille Quarles in the Ocklawaha area of Marion County, Florida.

Atkins was 12 in March 2023. The other defendants were Robert Robinson, 17, and Tahj Brewton, 16. Sheriff Billy Woods said the victims and suspects belonged to an unofficial neighborhood "wannabe gang" that had committed burglaries and robberies together. The victims were Layla Silvernail, 16, her friend Michael Hodo Jr., 17, and Quarles, 16.

The victims were found in separate places around Ocklawaha between March 30 and April 1, 2023. Silvernail was found March 30 with a gunshot wound to the head and died at a hospital. Hodo was found March 31 along a roadside, shot in the back of the head. Quarles was found April 1 in the trunk of Silvernail's partially submerged Chevrolet Cruze, shot twice. Woods said the three victims and three defendants had been in the car. Reports described robbery as the apparent motive, but accounts differed on the details.

Detectives used phone records, text messages, phone photos and community tips to identify the suspects, Woods said. Robinson was taken into custody the morning after the killings. Atkins was arrested on April 6, 2023, on a search warrant, and both arrests were announced on April 7, 2023. Woods said Robinson and Atkins confessed to shooting the girl found in the trunk and that Atkins shot her. According to an arrest affidavit, Atkins said Brewton shot Silvernail and Hodo, and that he was told to shoot Quarles or his family would be killed. Brewton was arrested on April 9, 2023, after about a week at large. Atkins was interviewed by police with his mother present.

A grand jury indicted all three as adults on May 16, 2023. Robinson and Brewton were each indicted on three counts of first-degree murder, while Atkins was indicted on one count of first-degree murder. All three also faced counts of robbery with a firearm and tampering with physical evidence.

Atkins pleaded guilty in April 2025 and agreed to testify against the other defendants. On July 22, 2025, he received 40 years in prison, with credit for 798 days served and a sentence review after 25 years. Robinson pleaded no contest and Brewton entered a plea in June 2025. On July 23, 2025, Judge Robert Hodges sentenced Brewton to three life sentences for the murders, plus life for armed robbery and about eight years for evidence tampering. Robinson received five life terms plus 132.3 months. Hodges called the offenses absolutely heinous. Because Robinson and Brewton were juveniles at the time, they are eligible for sentence reviews after 25 years. The death penalty was not available because of the defendants' ages.

The video is a police interview-room recording that runs about 92 minutes. It presents the interview itself and opens with a short narrated introduction naming the people involved.

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Part 2 of 2 of the recording described above.