Kidnappers who tortured, stuffed victims in U-Haul sentenced
Insets, from left: Frederick Rudolph and James Daniels (Florida Department of Corrections). Background: Scene where Rudolph and Daniels killed two men in Opa-Locka, Florida (WTVJ).
Two men in Florida are heading to prison — with each of them getting hit with a life sentence last week — for a horrific 2020 kidnapping in which they abducted three people and “tortured” them in the back of a U-Haul rental van before executing two of them, while one of the victims “miraculously survived,” according to prosecutors.
James Edward Daniels, 59, and Frederick Eugene Rudolph, 69, both of Miami, were sentenced to life in prison last Tuesday for the shooting deaths of Osmar Oliva, 50, and Johan Gonzalez Quesada, 26, in December 2020. The pair was convicted last year of conspiracy to commit kidnapping resulting in death, multiple counts of kidnapping resulting in death, and kidnapping, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. A third defendant, Herbert Barr, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and was sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison followed by five years of supervised release.
“On Dec. 5, 2020, Daniels, Rudolph, Barr and other co-conspirators kidnapped three victims from a truck yard in Opa-locka, Fla.,” the attorney’s office said in a press release last week. “They bound and tortured the victims, duct-taped their eyes and threw them in the back of a rented van after stealing the victims’ drugs. They drove around the city for hours before taking the victims to an abandoned house in Opa-locka and attempting to execute them by shooting the three victims. Two of the victims died, while one miraculously survived.”
The victim who lived was airlifted to the hospital and made a full recovery, according to prosecutors. In addition to attacking and torturing them, Miami-Dade police reported that the trio had also been robbed.
“Daniels stole jewelry from one of the murdered victims,” prosecutors explained. “And all defendants benefitted by receiving drugs, money, or both, in exchange for their participation in the conspiracy.”
Records show Daniels and Rudolph were also indicted on unrelated drug distribution charges in July 2022. In that case, a judge sentenced Rudolph to 11 years in prison and Daniels to 35 months in prison, or just under three years. The men were indicted for the kidnapping case in November 2023. Neither is a stranger to the criminal justice system, with Daniels’ Florida Department of Corrections incarceration history dating back 40 years. Rudolph was on probation for a drug-related charge at the time of the murders, records show.
The investigation into the 2020 kidnapping and shootings was conducted by the South Florida High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Task Force.
David Harris contributed to this report.
