|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
1 5 - 0 2 - 2 0 0 6 Wife Says Husband Told Her To Kill
DAVID SOMMER CLEARWATER - Timothy "Tracey" Humphrey was home in Brandon the night a Pinellas Park woman was shot to death at her home in a mob-style hit. Humphrey was ordering a pizza as Sandra Lee Rozzo died "kicking and screaming," in the killer's own words. The professional bodybuilder had a credit card receipt to prove it. Now, however, Humphrey is on trial on a charge of first-degree murder in Rozzo's July 5, 2003, death. Prosecutors want Humphrey, 39, executed if he is convicted. Their star witness: the woman who unloaded a clip full of bullets into Rozzo. Ashley Christine Humphrey acknowledges she was Timothy Humphrey's bride of less than 48 hours when she repeatedly shot Rozzo. It was a bid to keep her new husband out of prison after he was accused of battering ex-girlfriend Rozzo in a 2002 domestic dispute. Now she wants to "let it be known that he was the mastermind behind it," Ashley Humphrey said in sworn testimony. "I realized that I had been brainwashed and taken advantage of by this man, and I wanted to let the truth be known," Humphrey said of her decision to cooperate with authorities. If her testimony goes well at her husband's trial this week, Ashley Humphrey, now 23, will be allowed to plead guilty to second-degree murder and serve the time remaining on a 25-year prison sentence. Stakeout Replaced Honeymoon In a deposition given to her husband's defense team, Ashley Humphrey described how instead of going on a honeymoon, she spent the night after her July 4, 2003, wedding alone in the parking lot of the Green Iguana nightclub at Rocky Point. The freshly minted bride was on a stakeout for Rozzo, 37. Armed with a borrowed Ruger .22-caliber pistol, she planned to follow her husband's instructions to shoot Rozzo as the bartender left work, Humphrey told her husband's attorneys. For more than five hours, Ashley Humphrey waited for Rozzo to get off. Weeks earlier she did the same thing armed with a semiautomatic assault rifle, the woman testified. That time she ended up shooting out a side mirror on her Volkswagen bug, which she and her future husband then burned and reported stolen to cover up the abortive attempt, she said. This time the plan again went awry. Humphrey said she briefly dozed off, and Rozzo was in her 1996 BMW convertible when Humphrey woke up shortly before 11 p.m. Undeterred, Humphrey followed her across Tampa Bay. In constant communication by cell phone with her husband, Humphrey followed Rozzo to her home on 66th Way North in Pinellas Park, she said. "I followed her into the garage and butted my gun on the window to try and break it, but it didn't," Humphrey testified. "So then I shot at the window to break it and then shot at her several times." After Rozzo lay dead from eight bullet wounds, Ashley Humphrey got back in her car and resumed her calls to her husband. I "told him it was over and that I wanted pizza," she testified. "I wanted a double cheese and chicken and tomatoes, but he told me I couldn't have double cheese because he had already ordered the pizza." Evidence Includes Phone Records It took investigators five months to gather enough evidence to indict Ashley Humphrey on a first-degree murder charge. Much of the evidence against her consisted of cell phone records, according to an arrest affidavit filed by Pinellas Park police Detective Scott Golczewski. The Humphreys worked as personal trainers at Terrell Therapies on Cook Street in Brandon. It was there that a team of 28 law enforcement officers, including state and federal agents, swooped in to arrest the pair Dec. 18, 2003. Timothy Humphrey was charged with a federal firearms violation and initially was held in Hillsborough County. His wife was taken to Pinellas County Jail to await trial on the first-degree murder charge. On the way, however, detectives stopped at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement operations center in Tampa. There, Golczewski and FDLE agents Steve Davenport and Telly Sands told Ashley Humphrey they knew all about her husband's manipulative ways and warned her that, unless she cooperated, she could spend the rest of her life in prison while he went on with his life. She said nothing that day, but about six weeks later she asked for a deal. "It is somewhat unusual to have a death penalty case in which the shooter is testifying against another person," Stetson University College of Law Professor Robert Batey said Monday. "But under criminal law, anyone who urges or aids someone to commit a crime can be found guilty of the same crime." The case will hinge on Ashley Humphrey's credibility with the jury, Batey said. If jurors convict Timothy Humphrey and are asked to recommend the death penalty, they likely will learn about her deal for 25 years in prison, he said. Timothy Humphrey's defense team contends Ashley Humphrey acted alone in Rozzo's slaying, his court-appointed attorney Joseph McDermott said last week. In her deposition, Ashley Humphrey repeatedly said she killed out of love, that she did not want her husband to go to jail as a habitual felon for the 2002 attack on Rozzo. "To keep from losing him," Ashley Humphrey said when asked why she killed Rozzo. "I desperately wanted to be with him." 2 4 - 0 2 - 2 0 0 6 Spouse Says Killing For His Sake Was Wife's Idea
By DAVID SOMMER CLEARWATER - An ex-convict whose bride killed a woman to save him from going back to prison had to figure out on his own what she had done, he testified Thursday. Taking the witness stand in a bid to avoid a first-degree murder conviction and possible death sentence, Timothy "Tracey" Humphrey said his wife, Ashley, kept it secret that she gunned down a former friend of his who accused him of binding, raping and beating her. Humphrey only deduced what his wife had done after learning Sandra Rozzo was slain and that his bride of one day had borrowed a .22-caliber pistol from a friend, the professional bodybuilder told jurors. Prosecutors contend Humphrey, 39, manipulated his then 20-year-old bride into following Rozzo home from the victim's bartending job on Rocky Point and shooting her eight times on July 5, 2003. The slaying was the night after the Humphreys wed and a month before Timothy Humphrey was to go on trial in Tampa on the felony battery charge. Tampa prosecutors did not charge Humphrey with rape in the alleged 2002 assault because Rozzo, 37, did not immediately report it. They were seeking a mandatory 10-year prison term because Humphrey had done time for a similar attack on a Miami woman. In earlier testimony, witnesses who knew Humphrey from his Brandon personal training business said he told them he would do anything, including kill himself, to avoid returning to prison. Humphrey testified Thursday that he never told his wife he hated Rozzo or wanted bad things to happen to her. He said he discouraged his future bride when she hinted at taking matters into her own hands after learning of his upcoming trial. "The first thing she said was: 'What would happen if she [Rozzo] doesn't come to court?' And I said, 'That's kind of what I was hoping,'" Humphrey testified. "She said, 'What if somebody stops her from coming to court?' And I said: 'Don't even joke about it. If anything ever happens, I would be the first person'" the police would suspect. This week, Ashley Humphrey testified her groom guided her step-by-step through the killing during a series of cell phone calls police used to place her at Rocky Point and then near Rozzo's home in Pinellas Park at the time of the slaying. She said she killed out of love and that her husband threatened to dump her if she failed to carry out their plan. Timothy Humphrey said the calls were made during an extended argument over his wife's concern that he was having an affair with a client. Jurors are expected to get the case today. 2 5 - 0 2 - 2 0 0 6 He Didn't Pull Trigger, But He's Guilty
The Tampa Tribune CLEARWATER - A Brandon man could face the death penalty for a murder carried out in Pinellas Park while he was home ordering pizza. Jurors took less than three hours Friday to lay blame for Sandra Rozzo's death squarely on the shoulders of professional bodybuilder Timothy "Tracey" Humphrey, even though Humphrey's bride of one day pulled the trigger. "Justice will be done. He's going to get his," Rozzo's sister, Tracy Havlicek, said after jurors found Humphrey guilty of first-degree murder. The four-man, eight-woman panel is to return to court Monday to hear additional evidence and recommend whether Humphrey, 39, should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison for Rozzo's 2003 murder. They will hear evidence of Humphrey's prior crimes, including an attack on a Miami woman that landed him in prison and attacks on other women who declined to prosecute. Rozzo, who knew Humphrey from work, had filed a police report in 2002 stating Humphrey bound, beat and raped her. Rozzo was killed just weeks before Humphrey was scheduled to go on trial in Tampa on a felony battery charge stemming from that incident. Hillsborough County prosecutors, who were seeking a 10-year prison term because of Humphrey's record, were forced to drop the battery charge. Humphrey immediately became the prime suspect in Rozzo's slaying. People who knew him from his Brandon personal training business told investigators he said he would do anything to avoid going back to prison. Investigators also learned that Humphrey had married a woman 16 years his junior the day before Rozzo was killed. Cell phone records revealed that Ashley Humphrey, then 20, had followed Rozzo home from her job at a Rocky Point nightclub July 5, 2003. Ashley Humphrey subsequently confessed to shooting the 37-year-old bartender eight times as Rozzo arrived home in Pinellas Park. Humphrey said she did it out of love, at her husband's behest. Rozzo's family said Friday that before her death they had tried to talk her out of pressing the battery charge against Timothy Humphrey. They said she knew he had attacked other women and that most of them kept quiet after he threatened further harm. "She didn't want anybody else to be a victim of Timothy's, and if she had to die to get him off the street, then that is what she would do," Havlicek said of her sister's resolve to have Humphrey prosecuted for attacking her. "She's a hero. She really is a hero," Havlicek said. Rozzo's mother, Sandra Pool, said the family instinctively knew Humphrey was to blame when her daughter was killed. "He threatened my daughter when all this happened in the first place, and we knew immediately who did it," Pool said. "We were shocked he didn't pull the trigger." Rozzo's family said they had no problem with prosecutors offering to let Ashley Humphrey plead guilty to a reduced charge and serve a 25-year prison term in exchange for her testimony. Because Timothy Humphrey so dislikes prison, Rozzo's sister said, it will be fine with her if the jury recommends a life prison term with no chance of parole. "He didn't want to go to prison for 10 years, so life is enough," Havlicek said. By law, Circuit Judge Nancy Moate Ley must give the jury's recommendation "great weight" when she makes the ultimate decision. |
|
|
[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
