Witness accounts, surveillance video and vehicle damage helped connect a driver to Ashley Tyer’s death, say police.
MASCOTTE, Fla. — Detectives say a license plate number, surveillance footage and visible damage on a black Hyundai helped them identify and arrest the man accused of killing a tire shop worker during a botched getaway from a $95 service bill.
The investigation matters because the case against Brandon Charles Gregory Lewis, 33, depends not just on witness emotion or video clips but on a sequence of evidence police say places him at Just Stop Tires in Mascotte on March 16, then links the same vehicle to the fatal injuries that Ashley Tyer suffered before her death on March 21. Lewis is jailed on a vehicular homicide charge, and officers have said the inquiry remains open as they continue to examine what happened.
Investigators say the first break came at the scene itself. After the work on the Hyundai Equus was completed, police said Lewis and a woman with him tried to leave without paying. Workers moved quickly to note the tag number while calling police, according to the affidavit summarized in local coverage. That step became important because the car did not vanish immediately. Police said it stalled after reaching the road outside the shop, creating a brief pause in which employees approached the vehicle, Lewis got out and complained that the car had been damaged, then returned to the driver’s seat. Those moments gave witnesses time to observe the driver, the passenger and the vehicle closely enough for detectives to build a more detailed early case file than many hit-and-run inquiries begin with.
Surveillance video filled in the next layer, according to police and local television reports. Investigators said the footage captured Lewis at the shop and showed the sequence around the attempted departure. One coworker told News 6 that the customer lowered the jack himself and drove away. Video also showed the car nearly hitting another worker as it left, according to reporting. When the stalled vehicle started moving again, police said, Tyer ended up in front of it and was lifted onto the hood. James Kelly later told reporters the driver should have known not to continue once she was there. Police added that witnesses reported the vehicle swerving as if trying to throw her off. That combination of footage and witness statements helped detectives move from a rough description of a fleeing driver to a more confident identification.
The car itself, police said, became another witness. Investigators later connected the Hyundai to the woman seen with Lewis at the shop, then spotted it in Polk County and made an investigative traffic stop. Officers said the passenger-side windshield was cracked and the same side of the hood was dented, damage they believed matched the collision described by witnesses. After being read his rights, police said, Lewis claimed he had been at Hard Rock Cafe from noon to 4 p.m. on March 16 and then added, “I don’t even know where Mascotte is, I don’t know anything.” Investigators said surveillance footage contradicted that denial. The probable cause narrative, as reported by Law&Crime, used those pieces together: plate information, witness identification, vehicle condition and video placing the suspect at the tire shop.
Only after assembling that chain did the case move fully into court. Lewis was arrested and later appeared before a judge, who set bond at $500,000. Prosecutors used the hearing to argue that the case reflected extreme danger on the road and cited Lewis’ prior history, including a previous Ohio conviction for negligent vehicular homicide, according to local reporting from the proceeding. Reports also said his Florida driver’s license had been suspended since 2021. Lewis told the court he buys and sells cars for work. The hearing did not resolve several important questions, including whether prosecutors will add counts tied to the earlier contact with another employee or whether the passenger present that day faces any legal exposure.
The human side of the investigation remains visible beneath the evidence list. Tyer was 40 and had worked at the shop for seven years, coworkers said. Roy Cruz, the owner, described her as central to the business, and Kelly remembered her as caring and tough. Those statements do not prove the case, but they explain why the evidence gathered by detectives became so closely followed in Mascotte. The shop’s workers were not talking about an unknown victim. They were describing someone they saw every day, which is why each new detail in the affidavit and every hearing date has carried weight far beyond the narrow legal file.
Brandon Lewis’s next court appearance is scheduled for April 20. Until then, the prosecution’s timeline rests on the evidence police say they already have, while the unanswered parts of the investigation — including whether more charges are coming — remain for future filings and court hearings.
Author note: Last updated April 16, 2026.