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Published on Tuesday, December 21, 2004
in the St. Pete Times
TAMPA - The initial call was simple enough.
Two state troopers arrived at the Kennedy Boulevard exit off Interstate 275 about 1:44 a.m. Monday to check out a minor one-car accident near the off ramp.
They asked the driver, who had driven into a tree but did not appear to be injured, to show identification, said Trooper Larry Coggins, a spokesman for the Florida Highway Patrol.
Instead, the man backed up the car.
"He locks his door, cranks up the vehicle and sideswipes two Highway Patrol cars as he sped away," Coggins said. The car glanced the hand and arm of Trooper Dawayne Maddux.
Then it went the wrong way across the Howard Frankland Bridge at speeds exceeding 100 mph.
The troopers radioed an alert describing the vehicle, a 1999 Honda CRV, as it raced south in the northbound lanes of I-275, Coggins said.
Three troopers were on the other side of the bridge at a construction site near the Ulmerton Road exit, Coggins said. When they received the alert, they began to move construction workers away from the northbound lanes, he said.
"He blows right by them," Coggins said.
Seconds later, as the car passed the construction site, it slammed head-on into a Ford F-150 pickup driven by Roderick Sears, 26, and carrying Brittney Johnson and Lauren Lukes-Howard, both 17. All live in Sarasota.
It was 1:49 a.m. In the five minutes after the car sped away from troopers in Tampa, it had traveled 9 miles.
Upon impact, the pickup flipped over and rolled into an embankment, with two people being thrown from the vehicle, Coggins said. The third was partially thrown from one of the truck windows.
Then the truck caught fire.
The Honda, meanwhile, continued to flip down the highway and came to rest about 500 feet away, Coggins said. The driver, who was not wearing a seat belt, was pronounced dead at the scene.
The troopers began to put out the truck fire and treat the injured, Coggins said.
Sears was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital in stable condition, Coggins said, and Johnson and Lukes-Howard were taken to Tampa General Hospital in serious condition.
Investigators on Monday were still trying to determine the identity of the man driving the Honda, Coggins said.
The man, who carried no identification, was described as black, about 5-foot-9, in his mid to late 30s, with short hair and a light mustache. An autopsy was being conducted Monday.
Detectives say the Honda was stolen from a Largo gas station less than four hours earlier, Coggins said.
According to Largo police, a man entered the BP station at 790 East Bay Drive at 10 p.m. Sunday, bought a cigar and then asked the store clerk whether he owned the Honda in the parking lot.
He then grabbed the clerk's shirt, dragged him outside and pulled the clerk's keys from his pocket, police said. Then he sped away in the Honda.
Surveillance cameras at the store were turned off, and police were unable to say Monday whether the man who stole the car was the same as the man who died in it a few hours later.