Cady Way killer details students' deaths to detectives in recorded interview

ORLANDO, Fla. — WFTV obtained the recording of a recent detectives' meeting with the man who killed two Winter Park High School students along the Cady Way Trail earlier this year.

Jesse Davis has been sentenced to life in prison for the killings of 16-year-old Nicholas Presha and 18-year-old Jeremy Stewart in April.

In the audio recording, Davis, 31, told detectives that he fired his gun and ordered the teenagers to strip down when they got to his house.

“Get on the ground and get naked,” Davis said. “I wanted to make sure they didn't have any more weapons on them.”

Davis said he then used duct tape to tie up the teens.

“I put cloths over their face,” he said. “One of their T-shirts. I think I ripped it up.”

Davis then told detectives he took the two teens, naked, bound and blindfolded, to a gas station so he could buy gas because he knew he was going to set them on fire.

“I knew I was going to kill them,” said Davis.

“What would the burning do?” one detective asked.

“I'll try to burn away the evidence.”

Davis claimed that only Presha spoke in the car at that point, but he said the teen wanted his gun back. Davis said neither of the victims begged for mercy, because Davis said he told them he was just going to drop them off somewhere.

“I just shot one of them in the head, and then I shot the other one in the head,” said Davis. “I went and got the gas from the trunk, and I set them on fire.”

Autopsy reports show Presha was shot three times in the head before his body was set on fire. He was found with partially burned underwear around his head, and also tested positive for the drug benzodiazepine, a type of tranquilizer.

Stewart suffered blunt-force trauma and was shot in the back of the head, according to the autopsy report. He also had a blood-soaked cloth wrapped around his head.

Authorities said Davis set up the meeting with detectives in the hopes that he could be sent to a Central Florida prison so his mother could visit.

Hector Rodriguez is also accused in the case. He didn't want to be tried with Davis and did not want to rush to trial, so his murder trial is scheduled for May.

Throughout the interview with detectives, Davis denied that Rodriguez was with him, helped him or even knew anything about Davis' plan to steal the teenagers' stolen guns and then kill them.

Davis blamed his girlfriend for helping him initially tie up Presha and Stewart, rather than Rodriguez.

"This was a two-man operation. This is not a Jesse Davis operation," a detective is heard saying in the interview.

Davis said Rodriguez didn't know he intended to kill the teens, and he stuck to that story.

There was a moment in the interview where he nearly slipped up.

While talking about taking the bound teens to the gas station he first said Rodriguez went inside the Citgo, even though investigators have Davis on video inside.

He then claimed Rodriguez tried to stop him, then reversed and said the opposite.

"Was he in the car, watching the kids, while you were in the Citgo?" a detective asked Davis.

"I guess so," said Davis.

"How does he try to stop you?" the detective asks.

"He didn't try to stop me," said Davis.

Detectives also tried to get Davis to admit that Rodriguez must have been on the trail when the teens were shot to death and their bodies burned or they would have tried to run.

"They're standing there naked with their hands bound, and something covering their face, and whatever T-shirt you've got covering is duct taped to their head, and they're not running?" the detective asks.

"No," said Davis.

Davis struck a plea deal with prosecutors and was sentenced to life in prison for the killings.

WFTV