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Grooveshark executive killed

By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 12 November 2013

It seems unlikely that the Grooveshark company will be focusing too much on its various legal woes this week, following the news that the firm’s Director Of International Sales was shot dead this weekend, seemingly killed by a friend after an argument turned violent.

According to local media reports, Eddy Vasquez – who lives in Gainesville, Florida, the city where Grooveshark is based – last weekend returned to the Florida city where he had spent his teen years, St Petersburg, to attend a wedding. He then went out drinking with long-term friend Rodriguez Torres.

The sequence of subsequent events is not known, but an argument occurred between the two men at around 4am, which resulted in Torres fatally shooting Vasquez. Torres then grabbed a witness to the shooting and took him back to his apartment, where police rescued the hostage and arrested Torres at around 9am. He is currently being held on charges of armed kidnapping and second-degree murder.

Local newspapers say that while Vasquez and Torres attended university together and often socialised, their personalities were quite different, noting that Torres was known to be aggressive at times, especially when he had been drinking.

Vasquez joined controversial streaming service Grooveshark over two years ago and rose to the position of Director Of International Sales. The company’s VP of Marketing Michael Yeon said in a statement yesterday: “[Eddy] was visiting friends and family in the Tampa Bay area over the weekend when he fell victim to a senseless act of violence. We are deeply saddened by the loss of our dear friend and colleague”.