In the first dark hour of June 24, 2025, a male, 25-year-old named Darius Towns was struck down inside a unit at the Westside Townhomes on Dolphin Drive in Winter Garden. Officers were called to the complex just after 12:30 a.m., where two people had been shot; Darius Towns was rushed to a hospital and pronounced dead, while the second victim survived and was listed in stable condition.
Police said the gunfire erupted inside the residence, a burst that shattered the quiet and drew neighbors to their windows as patrol cars converged on 1054 Dolphin Drive.
Detectives pieced together the first steps of the attack from witness accounts and cameras: two armed individuals approached and opened fire inside the home, then fled. A third person, captured on video, was seen leaving the residence with property; investigators noted the footage but said that person’s role was unclear. When officers searched the scene, they recovered multiple spent casings and reported a strong odor of cannabis, details that suggested a fast, chaotic exchange before the shooters disappeared into the night. Several witnesses proved reluctant, offering limited cooperation as the first canvass began.
By midday, authorities publicly identified the victim as Darius M. Towns, and the appeals for tips intensified—a plea to help close the distance between fragmentary surveillance clips and a name, a motive, an arrest. Local coverage repeated the same essentials: the time stamp just after 12:30 a.m., the two victims, and the fatal outcome for the young man whose life ended before sunrise. Community pages and violence-tracking sites recorded it in stark shorthand—Darius Towns, age 25, lost to gunfire in Winter Garden—while police emphasized that the investigation was active.
As of the initial reporting, no arrests had been announced. Police described two gunmen as the prime suspects and asked anyone with information to come forward, signaling an open case still dependent on witness testimony, additional video, and forensic work from the casings gathered at the scene. The picture that remained was spare but chilling: a targeted surge of violence through a front door, a scramble for answers in its wake, and a city left to mourn Darius Towns, male, 25, while detectives worked to turn faint images and hesitant accounts into leads strong enough to bring the shooters into custody.
