Make Something of Yourself: The Murder of Randy Voigt

0:00 [Music] JoJo Voit said that his dad Randy had been riding him for a while, all about video games, and about how he needed to go out and get a job. JoJo was 23, with a gun arrest from the year before, and a battery charge that he was out on Bond for. That Bond was less than a week old when every police agency around Polk County, Florida started looking for his car. [Music] [Music] Marvin Voit, Jr., went by Randy, because, of course, he did. Law and crime did a documentary on this case, and from what they dug up, Randy was born and raised in Bartow, Florida, and he went to Bartow High. So this was his town. Bartow, it sits right in the middle of the state between Tampa and Orlando. It's the county seat for Polk County, which means if you had court in Polk County, you're driving to Bartow. Back in the early 1900s, it was a big phosphate town, and phosphate is that stuff that they mined out of the ground for fertilizer. Randy married a woman named Susan,

1:34 and she was about five years younger than him. Her first name and her age are about all that's out there about Susan, and I looked. The documentary says that Randy and Susan bought a house in Bartow in 2006. Their son Joseph was five years old at the time, and that's the house that he grew up in. They called him JoJo, and then JoJo drops off the map for a while, where he went to school or whether he even had a job. Any of that, I couldn't find anywhere. And the next time his name pops up, he's a grown man, and he's getting arrested. The police arrested JoJo in October 2023 for firing a gun in a residential area. I went and pulled up the law on this. The part that sounds closest to what he got charged with covers somebody who recreationally shoots a gun outside in a mostly residential area. And the example the law gives is target shooting. If you live in a neighborhood where the houses are kind of close together, you can't just go outside and willered nillard start firing a gun. And if you want to know what counts as residential, Florida put a number on it. It's at least one home per acre.

2:39 Anyway, the details on what JoJo did came from WFLA, the Tampa TV station, because they went back through the court records, and they say he fired 15 shots into the ground that his parents house. 15 shots in the ground in the house where he grew up, where his mom and dad were living. When the police asked him why, WFLA says he told them that he was bored. I went looking for anything else about his life that fall like a job or a fight at home or whatever, and WFLA's report is as far as it goes. Nobody said whose gun it was either. Then about a year later, he gets arrested again. This time, it's battery, which in Florida is touching or hitting someone against their will.

3:22 In the news coverage, it stops right there at the word battery. So I can't even tell you who the other person was. The Fox station in Tampa says he walked out of jail on Sunday, December 1, 2024. They say he was out on bond. That's two arrests in a little over a year for the guy who said that he was bored. He's 23 years old at this time. And out on bond means you get to go home while your case is still hanging out there, usually with the money put up and a list of rules that you have to follow. And I'd really want to know what was on JoJo's list, like whether a judge told him to stay away from guns and that paperwork never made it to the news. So we don't really know. Joseph JoJo was at his parents' house in Bartow that next Saturday night, December 7.

4:06 He shot both of his parents. Then he left. Susan was still alive, even though she'd been shot in the head. At about 1120 that night, she got police on the phone. She told him that her son, Joseph JoJo shot her and her husband and he took off. Bartow officers found Randy in the driveway. He was already gone. He was 63 years old. Chief Stephen Walker said that Susan was inside, sitting on the couch with one gunshot wound to her head. Metix worked on her at the house and she made it to the hospital in critical but stable condition. Chief Walker called it senseless. And he also said that everything he had heard, Randy and Susan were really good people.

4:48 Bartow police brought the sheriff's office in to help. They put out what cops call a "bolo" beyond the lookout on the car that JoJo was driving and it went to every agency in Polk County and the counties around it. They got out fast because Susan had already given police his name before anybody had even made it to the house. Less than three hours after Susan's call, Orlando police spotted the car. It was around two in the morning on International Drive. And if you've ever done the theme park trip, you've been on International Drive. It's that big tourist strip with all the hotels and attractions. And there's Joseph's car. Nobody knows why he went to Orlando. Orlando officers did a felony traffic stop, which is the version where police treat the driver like he could be dangerous. And they took him into custody with no gunfire reported.

5:37 And he got booked into the Orange County jail on first degree murder and attempted first degree murder. And there's body cam footage of him being arrested. So if you want to, you can go and find that. Then you read the sheriff's press release. The sheriff calls JoJo "violent and dangerous" and Chief Walker thanks everybody for how fast it all came together. Near the end, they list his criminal history with the gun charge and the battery. Polk County deputies talked to Joseph, JoJo, and they said that he admitted to shooting both of his parents. Then he told them why, or at least his version of why he did it. He said that his dad was really upset that he spent most of his time playing video games. He said that his dad had been on him quite a while about making something of himself. And getting a job. You can read his actual words and quotes in the press release.

6:26 Cusswords and all. When police asked JoJo about the gun back in 2023, he said that he was bored. Now he's telling deputies about his dad wanting him to go out and get a job. Stop playing video games. All of that comes from JoJo through deputies because the rest of his interview hasn't come out. And no doctor or expert has said a word publicly about a gaming addiction or anything like that. The story blew up really fast. Fox 13 and Tampa did the local story. Their headline ran about 20 words. Bartow Man kills father, injures mom because dad wanted him to stop playing video games and get a job. Fox stations all over the country picked it up. And if you were scrolling the news that week, you probably saw it. One of them was the Fox 13 in Seattle, which is a whole different Fox 13.

7:14 It's a little confusing, but two completely different parts of the country. Running the exact same story word for word. A new site over in the Czech Republic ran it too. Under a headline saying that his parents scolded him for only playing video games. JoJo saw a judge in Orange County that Monday, since Orlando's where they called him. And the judge held him with no bond until Polk County could come and take him back. The state charged him with first degree murder and attempted murder. And if you're convicted of first degree murder in Florida, you're looking at life in prison or the death penalty. He took a plea deal in April of 2025. He was 24 by then. The murder charge came down to second degree. And he pleaded guilty to that and attempted murder for shooting his mom, which took life and the death penalty off the table. People got a hold of court documents and they say that the state also let go of a separate charge for shooting into a building. The ledger, the Lakeland paper, says the deal came with 40 years in state prison. Because it was a plea, the case ended with no trial. And the version of that Saturday night you can actually read comes from police statements in court paperwork. Plus that one summary of what he told deputies about his dad.

8:24 Florida's prison system took him in on May 12, 2025. And the last time the website was updated, he was at Zephyr Hills Correctional Institute up in Pasco County. If you look him up, he's DC number F-32717. They got him in close custody with his visitation marked suspended. The website lists his crime in this all caps shorthand. And the state posts a warning on the page that those abbreviations might not match exactly what he was convicted of. So why put that on there? His release date says November 28, 2064. And the state says that that could change. But if he doesn't, if that holds, JoJo walks out at 63 years old, which is exactly how old his dad was. Susan, his mom survived. And the last thing anybody official said about her is still chief walker saying that she lost her husband and in a way her son too.

9:27 Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, bingeable true crime stories. Hello, I'm Jo, I'm the host, and here's an email, Subjects Hospital Laundry. Hey Jo, I run an industrial laundry at a hospital. It's loud, it's hot, and nobody comes down here unless something's on fire. Which means I can listen to whatever I want to all day long with no headphones at all, just a speaker on a shelf. 12 years of doing this. I've listened to your whole catalog twice. Started the third pass in August. Thing is, on the second time through, I noticed different stuff. First time I'm waiting to hear what happened. The second time, I noticed that sometimes you'll mention a date or some other detail in passing at the beginning, and it turns out to matter a lot later on. I like that. Anyway, down here in the basement with the dryers, somebody's paying attention. Louise in Texas. Louise, thank you so much for that email. That means a lot to me that that's how you choose to spend your day. You could be listening to literally anything. Music, you could even probably put a TV down there. Other true crime podcasts, even, but the fact that you choose mine every day means the world to me. People like you are the reason that I continue to do this podcast. I'm not getting rich doing this, and it is very interesting to me, but I feel like if I were to stop doing it, I would disappoint a lot of people just like you. So that's the reason that I keep doing this. You OG listeners that just, you keep powering through all the episodes, and you reach out to me and let me know that you're listening. You suggest cases, and you recommend the podcast to your friends and your family. That's how it

11:02 grows and reaches more and more people, and I really do appreciate that. I say the words that I appreciate it, but there are no words to express how much it really does mean to me. So again, thank you so much. And that's going to do it. That's your episode for today. Thank you for listening to 10-minute Murder. See you next time.