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Published on Wednesday, June 12, 2004
in the St. Petersburg Times
A man is indicted in the death of a trooper in a multicounty chase that ended in a crash.
A Columbia County grand jury on Thursday indicted a man already in custody in Citrus County on a charge of second-degree murder in connection with the April death of a Florida Highway Patrol trooper.
In the indictment, Gregory Hampton Platt, 31, of Naples, also was charged with driving with a suspended license which resulted in death, fleeing and eluding a police officer, and failing to stop in an accident involving death, according to an arrest report.
On Friday afternoon, Platt was being held at the Citrus County jail without bail.
When he was served with the Columbia County arrest warrant, Platt was being held on Citrus County sheriff's charges of two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon on a law enforcement officer, and one count each of fleeing and eluding a police officer, resisting or obstructing an officer without violence, and driving with a suspended license.
The Citrus charges came after a chase that ended in a crash east of Crystal River on April 27. That morning, FHP Sgt. George A. "Andy" Brown III, 54, tried to stop a speeder on County Road 341 in Columbia County, near Lake City. Brown's patrol car crashed and the trooper was found dead inside.
Platt's passenger, Kelly Jean Smith, 25, also of Naples, also was arrested that day. She was released from the Citrus County jail on May 1 after posting $10,000 bail.
Asked if Smith would face additional charges, FHP chief spokesman Maj. Ernesto Duarte declined to comment, saying the investigation is still open.
He also declined to discuss in detail what led FHP traffic homicide investigators to link Platt to the trooper's crash, saying only that there were "distinct characteristics that we know were involved in the (Columbia County) incident and the actual crash in Citrus County."
FHP officials turned over evidence to the state attorney's office in Columbia County, Duarte said.