- December 16, 2025
The victim’s girlfriend said they had been drinking and doing drugs
Updated Feb. 8
A pair of 30-year-old men have been taken into custody and charged with attempted felony murder in a stabbing on Feb. 7 at Destination Daytona on North U.S. 1. The victim, 29-year-old Kizon Brown, was still hospitalized as of Feb. 8 at Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach.
Randy Bartle, of Maitland, and Joseph Hutchinson, of Largo, were transported to the Volusia County Branch Jail at about 1:30 a.m. on Feb. 8 and were ordered to be held without bond, according to a press release from the Sheriff’s Office.
Spokesman Gary Davidson said Brown was listed as a transient from the Ormond Beach area.
Police were called at 9:18 a.m. on Feb. 7 by a bystander who was in the area for a motorcycle training class. He said he heard the victim calling for help. The victim was found at Ultimate Motorcycle Seats on Destination Daytona Lane.
About 10 minutes after deputies arrived at the scene of the stabbing, the Sheriff’s Office’s Communications Center received a call from a woman in Tampa who said her brother (Hutchinson) had called and told her that he was in the Ormond Beach area, had stabbed somebody and was planning to take his own life. Ormond Beach police officers canvassed the area and located Hutchinson in his work truck, parked at a motel not far from the crime scene. He appeared to have blood on his shoes and jacket. Ormond officers took Hutchinson into custody at gunpoint. While there, several men walked up to the area and were immediately detained. One of them was Bartle.
Although in critical condition at the hospital, the victim was able to tell sheriff’s investigators that he met the two suspects on Feb. 6 while at a bar in Daytona Beach with his girlfriend. He said he and his girlfriend were looking for a place to spend the night and the suspects offered to let them stay in their room at the Super 8 Motel in Ormond Beach.
Around 5:30 a.m. on Feb. 7, the victim said the suspects decided to go to the store and told him to go with them. After driving around for a while, the victim said they pulled off behind Ultimate Motorcycle Seats, dragged him out of the truck and started kicking him. The victim said Bartle stabbed him several times in the back and once in the arm as he tried to clutch Bartle’s legs.
The victim said that after the stabbing, the defendants got in the truck and drove toward him as he lay on the ground bleeding. He said the truck struck him in the chest area and nearly ran him over. Then the defendants drove off, thinking he was either dead or was going to die, the victim assumed.
In an interview with sheriff’s investigators, the victim’s girlfriend said that she and her boyfriend and the two suspects were drinking and doing drugs in the motel room. At some point, she engaged in a sex act with Bartle. Afterward, she said Bartle complained about the way Brown was treating her and threatened to kick Brown out or beat him up.
She claimed Bartle said he would slit Brown’s throat if he laid a hand on her, and she told Bartle that there wasn’t any need to resort to violence.
Early on Feb. 7, she said the three men left together. When the suspects returned to the motel room, Brown was not with them. She said she overheard them talking about stabbing Brown and noticed blood on their hands and clothes. One of them threatened her not to say anything, she said.
During the investigation, Hutchinson refused to give a statement and Bartle said his recollection of the events of the evening was hazy due to the drugs and alcohol. The knife believed to be used in the attack was recovered during the investigation.
