Kill For Me

By M. William Phelps

A newlywed couple has a murderous celebration the day after their wedding in this classic true-crime thriller by New York Times bestselling journalist M. William Phelps.

“Phelps is the Harlan Coben of real-life thrillers.”
 —Allison Brennan
 
A deadly obsession leads to a deadly wedding gift…
 
On a hot Florida night in 2003, aspiring model Sandee Rozzo drove into her garage after a long shift at a local bar. Waiting in the shadows was a killer who fired eight bullets point-blank into her chest. The police immediately suspected Timothy Alvin “Tracey” Humphrey, the ex she had recently agreed to testify against for imprisoning and raping her.  
 
But Tracey wasn’t just a bodybuilder who knew how to shape his body. He was a cold-blooded psychopath who could manipulate 19-year-old Ashley Laney into falling in love with him. On their wedding night, he made a strange request—one that would end in a tragic and brutal murder. The police knew Humphrey was the likely suspect, but he had an alibi for the time of the shooting. How could they prove that, even if he didn’t pull the trigger, he was the psychopath behind Sandee’s murder? It would all come down to a bold prison escape, a manhunt for a killer, and an explosive trial . . .
 
INCLUDES 16 PAGES OF SHOCKING PHOTOS
 
“Phelps gets into the blood and guts of the story”
—Gregg Olsen
 
“Master of true crime.”  
—Real Crime magazine  

“Anything by Phelps is an eye-opening experience.” 
—Suspense Magazine
 
“Phelps is one of America’s finest true-crime authors.”
—Vincent Bugliosi
 
“Phelps knows how to work it.”
—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pinnacle Books
• Release date: Sep 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9780786026012

M. William Phelps

Crime writer and investigative journalist M. William Phelps is the author of twenty-four nonfiction books and the novel The Dead Soul. He consulted on the first season of the Showtime series Dexter, has been profiled in Writer’s Digest, Connecticut Magazine, NY Daily News, NY Post, Newsday, Suspense Magazine, and the Hartford Courant, and has written for Connecticut Magazine. Winner of the New England Book Festival Award for I’ll Be Watching You and the Editor’s Choice Award from True Crime Book Reviews for Death Trap, Phelps has appeared on nearly 100 television shows, including CBS’s Early Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Today Show, The View, TLC, BIO Channel, and History Channel. Phelps created, produces and stars in the hit Investigation Discovery series Dark Minds, now in its third season; and is one of the stars of ID’s Deadly Women. Radio America called him “the nation’s leading authority on the mind of the female murderer.” Touched by tragedy himself, due to the unsolved murder of his pregnant sister-in-law, Phelps is able to enter the hearts and minds of his subjects like no one else. He lives in a small Connecticut farming community and can be reached at his website, www.mwilliamphelps.com.

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PART I

FIREWORKS

1

The killer sat inside the car, eyes trained on the parking lot entrance.

She’s here, the killer said into the phone, and remained focused on the car as it entered the lot. It was approaching two o’clock in the afternoon of July 5, 2003. The target had pulled into her regular parking space at the Rocky Point, Tampa, Florida, Green Iguana Bar & Grill. She got out and locked her car. Then walked into the building to clock in for her bartending shift.

Rocky Point is a small island west of Tampa International Airport. It is a busy part of the Tampa Bay region, lots of ritzy hotels and high-end restaurants. There are pristine beaches, featuring hard and tanned bodies, and people mingling about, quite oblivious to what is going on around them. When you think of the atmosphere and ambiance here in Rocky Point, picture the colors that Jimmy Buffett’s songs bring to mind: velvety blue water, yellow sun, white sand, puffy cotton clouds, lime-green drinks, with salt around the rim and tiny umbrellas pointed skyward.

Go get ready, he said.

The killer hung up the phone, hopped into the backseat. Put on a pair of baggy pants. A large sweatshirt. Baseball cap. Copious amounts of black makeup—I want you to look like a black guy, he had said—and a fake beard that wouldn’t stick in the excessive heat of the day.

The beard won’t stay on, the killer said after calling him back.

Forget it, then. But walk around the premises to see if anybody notices you.

The killer thought this to be an odd request. But then, over the course of the past several months since they had met, he had made numerous demands that didn’t make much sense. Here, in the parking lot of the Green Iguana, no one knew the killer. Walk around with a disguise on? Wouldn’t that, in and of itself, draw unneeded attention to the situation? They had gone through this scenario many times. Heck, they’d even tried to kill this woman once already. Why chance botching the thing again with some sort of crazy strut around the parking lot?

He had, however, trained—some would later say brainwashed—his killer well.

Okay, the killer said to the request, and then got out of the car and took a short walk around the parking lot. It seemed that nobody was interested in a nervous-looking person wearing what was an over-the-top Halloween costume in the middle of summer.

Back inside the car, the killer sat. Adjusted the seat to get comfortable.

Now it was just a matter of playing the waiting game until the target emerged from the bar.

Run up to her and shoot, the caller had said, explaining how he wanted the murder to go down.

Kill her in the parking lot in broad daylight?

As soon as she came out of the building after her shift, he had explained in more detail, the killer was to approach the woman—and, without thinking about it, without hesitation, without a worry that people would see, unload a magazine of bullets into her body. They had been through this part of the murder numerous times. Rehearsed the scenario. Talked about it until they were both blue in the face. That previous attempt the killer had botched, the shotgun had gone off too soon. The plan was abandoned; the evidence destroyed.

Today there would be no mistakes. The killer had a semiautomatic .22-millimeter Ruger pistol. A child could fire it.

Even though he had taught his killer how to shoot the weapon, he was still worried: You walk up. You fire. You don’t stop until the magazine is empty and the weapon is clicking.

You look into her eyes!

In theory, he made taking a life sound so easy.

Sitting, sketching out the plan, looking at the building, where the exits from the bar were located, the killer knew damn well that it was going to be impossible to murder the target inside the parking lot.

As the afternoon turned to dusk, the sun casting a brilliant red, yellow, and orange glow over Old Tampa Bay, the killer waited patiently, nodding in and out.

Then, as the sun disappeared over the cityscape, the killer came up with an even better plan. Thinking about it, darkness closing in around the car, the killer fell asleep.

2

It was 10:30 P.M. The moon was full, casting an eerie shade of white light over the same translucent seawater that had, only hours before, seemed so tranquil and calming. For some, it had turned into one of those picturesque, postcard-perfect nights in Florida you see on the cover of travel brochures. No doubt, scores of boaters were out enjoying a late-evening Gulf of Mexico cruise.

Thirty-seven-year-old Green Iguana bartender Sandee Rozzo brought her cash register drawer into her boss’s office at approximately 10:35 P.M. Sandee was in an especially good mood, a coworker later said. All night long business had been steady, yet uneventful. It wouldn’t be until after Sandee went home that the drama started, in the form of a bar fight, and two patrons had to be tossed. As Sandee prepared to clock out, it was your typical holiday weekend crowd. Glossy-eyed, alcohol-numbed, feeling no pain.

[Sandee] had a lot of regular customers, another coworker reported, and did not seem to have any problems with anyone.

True. Yet no one in the bar knew that Sandee’s life, at that moment, hung in the balance inside the parking lot, her killer sound asleep inside a car, waiting for Sandee to emerge. Still, if Sandee had suspected that someone was stalking her—and she was certainly looking over her shoulder these days, expecting someone to do her harm—she wasn’t showing any signs of that anxiety on this night. Sandee flashed her gorgeous white-toothed smile, so stunningly set against her bronze skin, perfectly smooth and blemish-free. She tossed her golden hair, which many of her girlfriends envied, and boasted a demeanor most would have assumed came from a woman without a care in the world.

As Sandee cashed out, counting her money against her receipts, her boss asked casually, not looking to pry, about her boyfriend. How things were going. Sandee had been unclear about the status of her most current relationship. To begin with, Sandee was quite reclusive and private, and this seemed to be a touchy subject for Sandee to broach lately. She was torn. Didn’t know what to do. The road she had taken down the pathway of romance in recent years was not at all smooth. Sandee had had her share of problems with the lovers she’d chosen—and even some she hadn’t.

I’m seeing a man who takes care of me, Sandee said to her boss, with a defeated sense of tossing in the towel. In there somewhere was an I’m comfortable and settling attitude, her boss sensed. Sandee had been down the marriage route already. That hadn’t worked out so well. Then she found the love of her life, a man who had changed her mind about taking that walk down the aisle again. She believed in second chances where love was concerned. He was perfect. They bought a house together. That white picket fence Sandee had always dreamed of—and told friends she so much wanted—was within arm’s reach. The guy even loved her daughter. But then he got cold feet and decided Sandee wasn’t the one. So he dumped her, which sent Sandee into an abyss of melancholy and despair.

Now, as she counted her money and chitchatted with her boss, Sandee was talking about how she had found herself involved in one of those relationships that love experts on Oprah often tell women to run from: she loved the man but, Sandee said, she wasn’t in love with him.

You live with him, right? her boss queried.

"Yeah. We have a townhome. He takes care of me. He’s respectful. I just don’t have those kinds of feelings for him. He’s passive. We live in the same home but have separate rooms."

On paper, in other words, the guy was perfect. In her heart, well, it just wasn’t what she wanted.

Did you go out last night? Sandee had brought a change of clothes to work the previous night, with the thought of heading out for a few drinks with friends after work. Her boss wasn’t sure if she had gone or not. Changing the subject, it seemed, was a good idea.

No…he was disappointed that I was going out. We didn’t have a fight or anything, but he wasn’t happy.

You worked late, huh?

"To be honest, that’s the only reason why I didn’t go."

Sandee was tired, but in a good mood when she left, her boss later said. After squaring up her register and punching the time clock, Sandee Rozzo walked through the kitchen, pushed the exit door open, hit the parking lot, and headed for her car.

As Sandee Rozzo approached her car, unaware that someone had been in the parking lot for the past eight hours, her killer awoke.

But it was too late now to kill Sandee in the Green Iguana parking lot. She was already in her car, headlights on, stereo full tilt, pulling out onto the main road.

All of this went on as her killer realized what was happening and became unnerved, staring at Sandee as she pulled out.

Shit.

The killer tore out of the parking space quickly, kicking up rubble, and got on the main road, but stayed far enough behind Sandee, so as not to be suspicious.

Pulling up right behind Sandee as she approached the bridge over Old Tampa Bay, the killer made another call. Police would learn later it was the twentieth call of the day the killer had made to the Svengali at home calling the shots.

It will be over in a few minutes, the killer said, staring at the back of the target’s BMW. I’ll call you when it’s done.

As the stalker pulled up closer to Sandee’s car as they drove, their cars just feet apart, no one could have imagined what happened next.

3

It was cool out, now that the sun had been down for several hours. Considering that the Gulf of Mexico was in front of Sandee as she headed over the Howard Frankland Bridge, and it was nearly the middle of summer in Florida, cool meant the low 70s. Generally, Sandee liked to drive her black BMW with the top down, feeling Old Tampa Bay’s salty air and gentle breeze caress her silky skin as she sped home like a movie star. But not tonight. Sandee took the twenty-five-minute drive with the top up. She was likely tired. Working two jobs had exhausted the woman. She wanted to be in her bed, snuggled up with her comforter, falling blissfully off to sleep. Tomorrow was another day.

Approaching the west end of the Howard Frankland Bridge, Sandee turned onto the 275 connector. From there, it was onto 118th Avenue North, toward the Pinellas Park townhome she shared with her boyfriend.

By Sandee’s side, on the tan leather passenger-side bucket seat, was the empty CD case to Madonna’s American Life, one of Sandee’s favorite discs these days. The Queen of Pop was blaring from the Beemer’s speakers. With song titles like Love Profusion, I’m So Stupid, Nobody Knows Me, and Hollywood, Sandee could relate to the tone and feel of just about any song on the disc.

Life wasn’t perfect for Sandee Rozzo, but it was getting better.

Day by day.

It must have felt reassuring to Sandee to feel good for once. Pain, confusion, depression, and regret are all temporary conditions for many. Sandee was smart; she knew this. She had been stressed lately. Ever since being brutally raped, beaten, and held hostage a little over a year ago by a guy she had worked with, a guy she had trusted and considered a friend, Sandee had dealt with the trauma in various ways. She liked to go off the deep end every once in a while, one source said, and get drunk. It had helped her forget that forty-eight-hour ordeal that changed her life. Of course, gone were the days of going out to the clubs all night and partying with friends until the wee hours of the morning. Sure, Sandee liked to tie one on now and then. But these days it was more to forget rather than to dance the night away. During one of those nights not too long ago, however, Sandee had gotten popped for a DUI. She had a court date for the DUI and another court date set to face her rapist. Both were coming up in a matter of weeks.

Heading off Route 275, Sandee drove down onto the 694/Park Boulevard. Then she took a sharp right onto the 693, Sixty-sixth Street. Passing the busy intersection, as if on autopilot, her car headed straight toward the Park Townhomes complex on her left, a rather exclusive, new condominium compound where Sandee had lived with Tony Ponicall, the guy she didn’t know what to do with, for the past few months.

At this time of the night—somewhere near eleven—there was generally no one around. Outside the townhome, as Sandee pulled in, she didn’t see anyone.

Yet, only a few car lengths behind, Sandee’s killer loomed, following each one of Sandee’s steps toward her home.

Admittedly, Sandee’s stalker had been to the townhome a number of times already. Roughly, the killer said later, a half-dozen times.

On two of those occasions, the killer said, the Svengali on the other end of the line came along for the ride, pointing things out.

You stop here. You run toward the garage there. You grab her [pocketbook] to make it look like a robbery. Don’t let her shut off her car….

The killer had, in fact, called the Svengali on the way.

Get out at a stoplight, he had said, and just shoot her! The killer could hear the hate and anger and frustration in his voice. The sheer depths of evil. Nothing else mattered but the death of this woman, Sandee Rozzo.

The killer wasn’t comfortable with that. No way.

As Sandee slowly maneuvered her BMW into the small opening of the garage, her killer pulled up in front of the neighbor’s townhome and turned off the lights on the car. For a fleeting moment, the killer thought, Don’t do this…. Turn the car on and leave. Run away. But then as quickly as that thought emerged, another came, You don’t want to face him if you don’t follow through.

Sandee believed her live-in partner, Tony Ponicall, was sleeping upstairs, as he usually was when she got home from the bar.

The killer, meanwhile, watching Sandee pull in, forgot about those voices, looked in all directions, and realized the coast was clear.

Sandee’s back brake lights went from a bright to a dull red as Sandee took her foot off the brake shoe and put the car in park. She was inside the garage now, ready to shut off the car, collect her things, and head inside.

For the killer, it was do-or-die time. There was about a twenty-second window of opportunity before Sandee got out and walked into the home through the inside garage door, or closed the garage door.

The killer pulled up a few feet more and parked at the end of Sandee’s driveway. Got out quickly. Ran up to the garage.

Sandee was gathering her pocketbook and clothes to step out of the car when she spotted someone dressed in a bizarre disguise. She was startled, of course, but she must have known as the killer came up to the driver’s-side window and brandished that .22 pistol, this was it.

The end.

The killer butted the window, trying to shatter it.

Didn’t work.

So then, the killer said later, I shot at the window to break it, and then shot at her several times.

Sandee reacted quickly; she started kicking and screaming.

One bullet traveled through her foot, hit her in the face.

The killer kept firing, screaming as the gun unloaded eight rounds.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Pause.

Bang-bang-bang. Bang. Bang.

Sounded like rapid backfires from a car.

I think I hit her in the foot and in the leg, like maybe in the torso several times, the killer later stated. I am told that she was shot in the head, but I don’t recall shooting her in the head.

The killer was staring directly at Sandee’s face while firing. The murderer’s eyes awash in violence and anger as Sandee fought for her life inside her BMW, watching her killer unload round after round into her body at point-blank range. It was almost surreal: happening, but not happening.

One bullet hit Sandee between the eyes.

Look at her face, Svengali had told his killer, to make sure she is dead….

The killer did that.

Sandee appeared to be gone—though she wasn’t. There was blood all over her face and torso, soaking quickly into her clothing like sweat. The carpeting on the floorboards of the Beemer was quickly saturated with even more blood.

Sandee’s killer ran down the driveway fast. Hopped into the car and sped off.

No lights came on. Nobody seemed to be following.

It’s over, the killer told Svengali, calling him after getting on the main road. It’s done.

Silence.

She’s gone? he asked.

It’s over…. I want pizza.

Pizza?

Arguably, a stalker had just crossed the line and turned into a cold-blooded, ruthless killer: Having fired at a woman as she sat in her car, this maniac now wanted food. A large pizza, in fact, as if it were some sort of reward, a prize for completing a job they had talked about for months.

Yes, I want pizza.

What kind?

I want double cheese and chicken and tomatoes.

You cannot have double cheese. They were on strict diets, he reminded his killer. Double cheese was too fattening.

Why not? The killer was driving erratically, cruising down Park Boulevard, backtracking over Old Tampa Bay on the 275, heading toward home, in Brandon, on the east side of Tampa, about thirty-five minutes from the murder scene.

Why can’t I have double cheese? The killer sounded like a pouting child. The job was done. The one who did the dirty work should be able to have any damn type of pizza in the world.

Because I already ordered the pizzas, he said.

4

You’re sound asleep. A noise in the night startles you awake. Ten minutes later, your life has been turned upside down.

It started at about two o’clock that same afternoon, July 5, 2003, when Anthony Tony Ponicall walked into his Pinellas Park, Florida, home from his job at US Airways in Tampa. Tony was bushed. It had been a long shift. Sandee Rozzo wasn’t home. According to Tony, he and Sandee had dated for the past two years. They met at US Airways. Both were ramp attendants. Tony had seen Sandee earlier that morning as she walked in from a prior night’s shift. It was right around sunup, near five o’clock.

I was up in the morning, Tony told police. I wasn’t ready to go to work yet, but I was up when she came in.

They said hello. How was your night? Get some rest. Those little things friends and perhaps lovers say to one another casually during the course of a day. Those words that come out of our mouths at random, as if we’re programmed to say them. Yet never, in our wildest dreams, do we think Have a good day will be the last thing we ever say to someone we care about deeply.

According to some who knew Sandee well, Sandee said she had finally fallen into the relationship with Tony. For a long time, she had viewed what she and Tony had as roommates and friends. Nothing more. She knew Tony was good for her. They made the ideal couple. The guy was great. Kindhearted and gentle. Hard worker. Family man. He adored Sandee. Treated her as though she were the only woman in the world. They were happy, Tony later claimed. That morning they discussed the day ahead and agreed to see each other later on that night when Sandee returned from her bartending job at the Green Iguana.

Sandee was a voracious note-taker. She liked to keep track of her days—dates, work schedules, meetings with friends, things to do, birthdays, important things going on in her life—in a day planner she always kept with her. Tony knew, because Sandee had checked her schedule and told him, that she was working that night. She would be home at about eleven. Tony didn’t park in the garage because he knew Sandee liked to put her BMW away at night. He was generally asleep when she got in.

The townhome on Sixty-sixth Way North in Pinellas Park, which Tony and Sandee shared, was something they had both worked hard for. The front door opened into a small foyer area laid out in peach-colored ceramic tile. To the right, almost as soon as you entered the home, the kitchen’s white cabinets beckoned you toward the room. There was a door into the garage inside the kitchen. The west side of the spacious living room had a double slider door leading out onto a covered porch. A small half bath was underneath the stairs leading up to a second floor, where Sandee and Tony had separate rooms.

As the night wore on, Tony got sick of watching television. Shut it off. Then dozed off in bed upstairs. It was close to nine, he later recalled, when he faded out.

I was sleeping, Tony told police. And I heard loud bangs.

Pops was more like it. Sharp cracks, followed by booming echoes.

Tony had been asleep for approximately two hours by the time he was awoken by the noises.

There was no reason for alarm. It was the Fourth of July weekend. Florida was party central to begin with. Fireworks are a Southern tradition. Loud, big-bang fireworks, in fact. Everyone, it seemed, had fireworks in Florida during the Independence Day celebration.

The noise woke Tony up.

Wow, he thought, opening his eyes, groggy from sleep, people are shooting off firecrackers, either right in the yard or, you know, very close to home.

The noise that startled him, Tony later asserted, was intensely loud and sounded as though it had come directly from below his bedroom window.

Which was odd.

Tony said he sat up in bed; then he decided he had better get downstairs and check things out. No need for kids or the neighbors to be shooting off fireworks in the front yard of the townhome. And this late?

It was a series [of loud pops], Tony recalled, roughly four…. My heart was racing because it startled me.

Tony was a light sleeper.

So he got up. Didn’t even put on his slippers or a bathrobe.

Downstairs, wearing his boxer shorts, Tony took a look through the peephole of the front door. It sounded as though the fireworks had been set off right outside on the small lawn.

He didn’t see anything.

Tony then walked through the kitchen toward the garage door. Maybe, he thought, something had exploded. Paint? An aerosol can? Gasoline?

Passing through the kitchen, perhaps as a habit, Tony took a look at the LED clock on the microwave. It was 11:10 on the nose.

First thing he saw after opening the interior door into the garage was Sandee’s car.

She was home.

Strange.

I didn’t expect to see it. I didn’t think she was home yet.

The garage door, Tony noticed, was still open. But with an automatic garage door opener, this was on point with Sandee’s MO.

She would normally leave it open.

The light from the overhead garage door opener was still on. It was one of those automatic-timer jobs, which meant that Sandee had pulled in only minutes ago.

But where was she? Tony couldn’t see Sandee.

Coming from the doorway between the garage and the townhome, Tony walked down the few flights of wooden stairs after he thought he heard a noise inside the garage. He was not wearing shoes.

As he walked along the driver’s side of Sandee’s car, Tony was struck by thousands of tiny shards and bits and pieces of broken glass on the cement floor of the garage by the driver’s-side door of Sandee’s car. He was walking on glass.

Then he heard a faint voice.

Looking up from the ground, Tony Ponicall noticed that the driver’s-side door window of Sandee’s BMW was gone.

Shattered.

Weird. What was all this glass doing on the floor? How did Sandee’s window get smashed? Nothing made sense. Nothing registered.

Then Tony took a few more steps forward, leaned in through the broken window, and saw Sandee.

5

Tony Ponicall was baffled for a brief moment by what he saw. He stood next to Sandee Rozzo’s BMW and stared at the broken glass all over the floor underneath his bare feet. The driver’s-side window was missing. Sandee’s car wasn’t running. The garage door was open. Then there was that whisper of a voice he thought he heard.

The scene was not something one expects to walk into after falling asleep and being startled awake. But here he was, nonetheless, inside his own garage, staring at Sandee’s car, a smashed window, and Sandee was nowhere to be found.

Tony looked inside the car and—lo and behold—there was the woman he loved, hunched over the console between the driver and passenger seats. Sandee’s legs were still underneath the steering wheel, but from her chest up, Sandee was lying on the passenger seat, her head slumped over the edge of the seat, almost on the floor.

There was glass all over the inside of the car.

My God, Sandee…

Tony pulled Sandee upright, then ran to the other side of the car.

Sandee? Sandee? Sandee? he screamed as he opened the door.

Then he saw all the blood. Sandee’s face was covered with it. There was blood all over the inside of the car. Glass too. Sandee didn’t seem to be breathing.

Or was she?

What in the name of God was going on?

Sandee?

Tony tried to sit her upright.

Sandee?

What the hell happened?

She wasn’t moving.

Tony grabbed Sandee’s cell phone.

Dialed…

Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?

Tony sounded out of breath and frantic; yet there was a stoic matter-of-factness in his voice—all business. I don’t know. My girlfriend came home. She’s in the car. The window’s broke. She’s bleeding.

The facts.

As the operator asked Tony for the address, he talked over her, adding, I cannot get her to wake up.

The operator asked for the address again.

Tony gave it to her.

After they discussed a discrepancy in the address Tony had given, she said, Okay…so you have no idea what happened to her?

No…I—I…heard a noise…. It woke me up…. I came down and she’s bleeding, and I cannot get her to respond.

Okay, so what is your cell phone number, please?

She’s bleeding very badly…, Tony said before giving the woman the number.

What kind of car is she in?

Details. Particulars. The operator wanted to keep Tony talking. Keep him focused.

She’s in a black BMW in my garage.

I’ve got rescue on the way, the operator said. I need to speak with a paramedic. Hold on, sir.

Thank you, Tony said tiredly, still trying to catch his breath.

He waited a beat.

Sandee? Sandee?

As the operator called on paramedics, Tony was saying calmly, Sandee, wake up, honey…wake up…. Sandee, wake up….

Sandee was not moving.

Tony and Sandee had moved into the townhome that February, just about five months before he woke up and found her lifeless body in the garage. Before that, they had lived together on Rocky Point Drive in Tampa, not too far from where Sandee held her part-time bartending job at the Green Iguana. The Rocky Point Green Iguana Bar & Grill was a popular Ten Best restaurant/club in the region. Sandee had been furloughed from her job at US Airways, Tony later explained, and started working as a waitress/bartender to make up some of that lost income. She also had worked for the Masquerade, a club in Ybor City, just outside Tampa, and at several other bars and clubs over the past decade.

Sandee did some modeling, and like most struggling actresses/models, she made ends meet by working tables and taking drink orders behind the bar. Everyone who knew Sandee spoke of her in a reassuring, gentle way. One trait Sandee had that many agreed was one of her strong points to be admired was that she never stayed mad for a long period of time if there was a falling-out. She knew how to forgive and forget, something that is sometimes hard for people, especially for a friend who felt scorned. This didn’t mean Sandee was a pushover. Far from it, actually. She was strong-willed and tough, particularly when it came to what she believed in.

Several of Sandee’s coworkers from the Green Iguana, where she had been working since January, said Sandee was preparing—and was prepared—to do battle with a former acquaintance and coworker whom she had met years before during a stint at one of the bars she’d worked at. The guy was a bouncer. He had become infatuated and obsessed with Sandee. There was an outstanding charge against the guy—one of many he’d had against him over the years—for sexual assault and kidnapping. Sandee had lodged the complaint herself and had decided to see it through until the end. She had been waiting for her day in court, which happened to be just a matter of weeks away. She visualized herself sitting in front of the creep, telling her side of what had happened between them. Rape is brutal, and hers was a horror show—like nothing Sandee had dreamed she’d ever be a part of, much less a victim.

When paramedics arrived at the Park Townhomes in downtown Pinellas Park somewhere near 11:30 P.M. on July 5, 2003, Sandee Rozzo still had a pulse, faint as it was.

Tony Ponicall seemed strangely cool, calm, and collected. Maybe he was in shock and couldn’t believe—or, perhaps, conceive of—what was happening. Then there was the whole question of how Sandee had gotten hurt. No one seemed to know. And nobody could tell at this early stage. What actually had happened? Tony had no clue, he said. One moment he was sleeping, the next he was awoken by fireworks, loud bangs. Pops. Whatever. And Sandee now lay bleeding and fighting for her life.

Who could make sense out of any of this?

As the ambulance pulled out of the driveway, heading to Bayfront Medical Center in nearby St. Petersburg, Sandee struggled to hang on to her life. Tony Ponicall got into his red SUV and followed. Patrol officers were already responding to the scene, taping off the driveway and the townhome. Tony never said he was leaving. He hopped in his truck and hightailed it out of there.

This happened just as detectives were being awoken and called in to find out what in the world had happened to Sandee Rozzo.

6

Only in the state of Florida could you grow up in a town called Treasure Island. What a place for a kid. Sand as white and soft as Styrofoam. Palm trees so perfect they looked fake, made out of plastic, something out of a Disney video. And, of course, year-round warm weather that most anyone could force themselves to get used to.

Like many in the state, Detective Paul Andrews and his family were Florida transplants. Paul was born in New Jersey. His father died when he was two months old. His mother remarried within a few years. Detective Andrews has two stepbrothers, two sisters, and a half brother. Pinellas County—Treasure Island being a small beach community there—"is the most densely populated county in Florida. It’s small, and it’s just packed with people," Paul said.

The area might have a Disney feel to it and look like a movie set, but like many other beautiful places in the country, crime is part of the landscape. The biggest city in the county is St. Petersburg.

There’s an area of our county, like many of the other metro areas, under a drug epidemic, Paul explained. They have five hundred eighty-five police officers.

When Paul Andrews was seventeen, a senior in high school, he and his stepfather found themselves sitting in the principal’s office of Boca Ciega High School discussing Paul’s future in law enforcement as a full-time night-shift dispatcher for the Treasure Island Police Department (TIPD). It was Paul’s first professional taste of the real world of cops and criminals, something no one in his large family had ever done. Paul had been involved in the Police Explorers program in Florida for several years, but this was an opportunity to work a real law enforcement job. A paycheck. Guns. Knives. Arrests. Sitting at the phones all weekend long, answering calls, Paul was going to hear it all. Straight from the men and women he aimed to be like someday.

He wanted to take the job, Paul told his principal, John Demps. After the school year was over and he graduated, Paul was going to be working there full-time, anyway. Why not start now? Paul had brought along his stepfather, Andy Kohut, to ask the principal for permission.

"As long as you don’t object," the principal said to Paul’s stepfather.

Paul had taken right to police work after a friend of his asked him if he wanted to join the Explorers, back when Paul was fourteen years old. Since that time, he had never given up on the idea that law enforcement was in his blood and going to be part of his life.

Back then, Paul said, we were allowed to ride with the officers. You were essentially an attachment to the police officer. We got to see a lot of things.

In 1984, the Pinellas Park Police Department (PPPD) had around forty officers on payroll. A friend of Paul’s had taken a PPPD job. He saw Paul one day. Listen, Pinellas Park is starting their own communications center. It’d be a great opportunity for you to come up there and work.

Paul had some years behind the dispatch line at Treasure Island by then. It was time for a change. Maybe get out on the road. Do some real police work. Still, he was skeptical. Unsure of himself.

Not a day went by afterward when Paul didn’t ask