There was no reason for Adam Hilarie to believe anything but the obvious: He had just been on a promising first date with a pretty girl.
Hilarie had met Hailey Rose Bustos on PlentyOfFish, which bills itself as the largest dating site in the world.
He’d picked her up and they went bowling in Winter Haven, Florida, at Cypress Lanes, which offers shoe and lane rentals for a quarter on Thursday nights, and specials on pizza and beer.
A few hours later, the pair ended up at his place, where they talked a bit more and met up with his roommate.
Then, Hilarie dropped his date off at home.
Bustos sent the single father a text afterward: She’d had a good time, she wrote to Hilarie, and wanted to meet up the following night at his place.
The next night, her real intentions became clear, police told The Washington Post.
Bustos, 18, brought three men with her to Hilarie’s place, including two career criminals on probation for violent felonies. At least one of the men, police said, had a gun.
When Hilarie, 27, responded to the knock on the door, the men overpowered him and dashed inside, police said.
The struggle ended in the kitchen.
“Hilarie was begging for his life, he was not putting up any kind of fight, and was telling them that he had a 5-year-old daughter,” according to arrest reports obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.
Hilarie was shot in the head and collapsed on the kitchen floor, Auburndale’s Deputy Police Chief Andy Ray told The Post.
As Hilarie bled out, Ray said, the suspects went downstairs, pulled their car to the front of the apartment and began stealing the dead man’s Xbox, iPhone and TVs — valuables Bustos had spotted the night before.
A witness told investigators that Bustos had been involved in at least one similar robbery before, Ray told The Post.
For her role in the deadly robbery of Adam Hilarie, Bustos was paid $50 in cash, police said.
Johnny Jackson told The Post that Hilarie, his brother, took Bustos to the same bowling alley the siblings used to go to as kids.
Jackson remembered his brother cracking jokes while wearing Florida State University colors, the school whose teams they cheered.
“When it came to sports, he was always the number one pick,” Jackson said. “He did a little amateur boxing, but he was one of the biggest Florida State fans. We was raised that way. We don’t wear the rival colours. We don’t put our kids in them.”
Nobody was more important to Hilarie than his daughter, Lajaya, he said. “He really loved his daughter,” Jackson said. “That was his world.”
Jackson said he didn’t know how long his brother and Bustos had been talking on PlentyOfFish.
He estimated Hilarie had been on the site less than two months, because that’s when Hilarie broke up with his last girlfriend. The brothers had talked about the site, because Jackson is also a member.
“Half of the profiles, they don’t even put their real name,” Jackson said. “I see girls on there that their occupation is getting money. I stay way away from them.”
Ray, the deputy chief, said it’s unclear if Bustos used her real name. At a news conference, he said he suspected she was experienced with the scheme.
“Her comfort with the way this went, didn’t seem like it was her first time,” he said. “If she hasn’t done it before, then she has talked to people who have done it.”
It is unclear if Bustos has hired an attorney, and her family members could not be reached for comment.
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