Fountain Valley massacre

The perpetrators were five Virgin Islanders, Ishmael LaBeet, Beaumont Gereau, Meral Smith, Warren Ballentine, and Raphael Joseph. Authorities initially believed the five had committed the execution-style shootings in the course of a robbery gone bad, but later developments suggested that the killing was planned by at least one of the perpetrators. Joseph and Ballentine testified at trial that they had expected only to commit a robbery ==Trial and convictions==

All five defendants were convicted after a jury trial in the District Court of the Virgin Islands, a federal territorial court, on multiple charges of murder, assault, and robbery under Virgin Islands law. Each was sentenced to eight consecutive life terms. which subsequently also upheld the denial of motions for a new trial. LaBeet has since denied any involvement in the 1972 shooting. ==Aftermath==

The racial motivation for the killings and fear of further violence led to a steep decline in tourism to St. Croix, from which the island's tourism industry only recovered decades later. The song, released in 1970, later became a hit for King Harvest and again for Toploader. On December 31, 1984, LaBeet (then calling himself Ismail Muslim Ali) hijacked American Airlines Flight 626 while in federal custody on a transfer to a new place of detention, using a handgun stashed in a lavatory. Cuban authorities did prosecute LaBeet for aircraft hijacking. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, of which he served seven years. With the thawing of Cuban–American relations in 2015, LaBeet was confirmed to be living at large in Cuba. He was the subject of the 2016 documentary film ''The Skyjacker's Tale''. Joseph was released from prison on December 22, 1994, after being pardoned by the governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands. However, he died of a drug overdose four years later. As of 2022, they remained incarcerated at the Citrus County Detention Facility, north of Tampa, Florida. ==References==