Two Florida middle schoolers are facing serious juvenile charges after deputies say their own mothers identified them as the suspects behind more than $50,000 in damage to a school library.
According to the Volusia Sheriff’s Office, the boys—ages 12 and 13—first wandered onto the Friendship Elementary School campus in Deltona during the day on September 13, then slipped back onto the property later that night. Investigators allege the pair ransacked the media center: books tossed across the floor, furniture upended, and graffiti scrawled on doors and surfaces. Deputies responding to a triggered fire alarm found a shattered glass entry and a library in ruins.
Body-camera clips released on social media show the chaotic aftermath inside the media center, while still photos capture scattered stacks, broken fixtures, and widespread damage. Surveillance images circulated by the sheriff’s office appear to show two masked youths entering the library; one wore a Monster Energy cap.
Tips poured in once the footage was posted online, but the key calls came from the boys’ mothers, who recognized their children and contacted authorities. In a September 15 update, the sheriff’s office stated that the youths—identified as 12-year-old Felix Cohen Romero and 13-year-old Bentley Ryan Wehrly—confessed. Investigators say the pair entered the school during daytime hours, then returned after dark “to look at the damage and cause more,” with total losses to the media center estimated at $50,000 or higher.