A Brevard County jury has sent a Cocoa man to prison for the rest of his life in what prosecutors described as a deadly act of payback inside a shared home.
Kendall L. Britt, 30, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to natural life in prison after jurors found he shot and killed his roommate, 49-year-old Anthony “Donell” Greenwood, at the Cocoa house the two shared in January 2022. The verdict capped an eight-day trial in Viera, and jurors deliberated for roughly two hours before returning guilty verdicts.
Prosecutors said the killing was retaliation for an earlier blowup at the Bacon Street residence involving Greenwood and Britt’s ex-girlfriend. Neighbors later reported hearing multiple gunshots that morning, and investigators found Greenwood’s body along with nine shell casings at the scene.
Prosecutors' case
According to West Orlando News, prosecutors told jurors that Greenwood had previously argued with and battered Britt’s ex-girlfriend inside the Bacon Street home. They argued that Britt came back to the house with a gun after that confrontation.
West Orlando News reports that Britt’s ex-girlfriend and another woman, who was his girlfriend at the time of the shooting, both testified that Britt admitted to killing Greenwood. The state’s case, presented by prosecutors Kerri Fowler and Shane Williams, leaned on that witness testimony along with a stack of forensic evidence.
Evidence presented at trial
Prosecutors also played a neighbor’s security video that recorded the sound of eight to ten gunshots and showed a silver sedan in the driveway at about 8:49 a.m., according to Space Coast Daily. Mobile-phone location data placed Britt at or near the home at the time investigators say Greenwood was killed, backing up the state’s timeline.
Nine 9 mm shell casings were recovered beside Greenwood’s body. Forensic testing linked those casings to Fiocchi-brand 9 mm ammunition found in a magazine that belonged to Britt, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement reported that the bullets matched the type of 9 mm handgun he owned.
Verdict and sentence
After eight days of testimony in Viera, the Brevard County jury found Britt guilty of first-degree murder with a firearm and returned its verdict on March 4, according to West Orlando News. Circuit Judge Michelle Naberhaus immediately imposed a natural life sentence, the only allowable prison term for that conviction under Florida law.
The sentence means Britt will remain in prison for the remainder of his life, with no chance of release short of a successful appeal.
What it means
The conviction closes a homicide case that began in January 2022 and spotlights how central phone location data and neighborhood video have become in modern prosecutions, Space Coast Daily notes.
With a natural life term now in place, any challenge Britt brings will move through Florida’s standard post-conviction appeal procedures and timelines, a long legal road that rarely changes the outcome in first-degree murder cases like this one.
