Kill For Me (4 page)

Part of being a detective is having your life disrupted day or night, no matter where you are, what you’re doing. It comes with the territory. Dispatch could call you at any time. The way Detective Paul Andrews ran the DU was simple: If a major case broke—especially a homicide—all of his detectives were notified. Whoever could make it out to the scene would go. But there were always a few detectives “on call,” so to speak, who were expected to drop the ebb and flow of their lives and rush out the door.

At the time the call came in to head over to Tony Ponicall’s townhome in downtown Pinellas Park, the PPPD’s DU had its hands full with a reprehensible set of crimes that needed to be solved quickly. Elderly people being badly hurt had turned into murder when one of the victims recently died.

Beginning in June 2003, a group of “two to three guys” started following elderly ladies around grocery stores, scoping out their hands.

Their fingers, to be exact.

The team of hoods was on the lookout for women wearing their wedding rings on their right hands, which meant they were widows. Widows, the bad guys knew, generally lived alone. Once a target was spotted inside a particular store, the bad guys hung around outside in the parking lot of the supermarket, waiting for the target to leave. Then they followed her home and “violently attacked her” by robbing her house and taking anything of value. If the target resisted, she’d be pummeled. Beaten to the ground.

Recently one of the elderly ladies the group had targeted and attacked had fallen down in her driveway during the assault and had broken her hip. As a result of that injury, the woman died. The PPPD’s DU wasn’t investigating a case of assault charges anymore—but murder.

On Saturday night, July 5, 2003, Detective Paul Andrews’s number one—or lead—investigator that weekend, Detective Mike Lynch, was at the Pepsi 400 car race in Daytona, about a 150-mile, two-and-a-half-hour ride northeast of Pinellas. “Number one” is more of a title than a ranking. Who Paul’s “number one” man or woman was on any given night changed every weekend. It was a simple way to delegate responsibility.

Nonetheless, Mike wasn’t expected back in town from that long holiday NASCAR weekend until Monday.

Paul had a major crime to contend with, however, and he needed someone fast.

Paul was at home on the night of July 5, 2003, near the time when Sandee was discovered in her car. It was the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) that called Paul. Yet, the call wasn’t about the possible shooting at Tony Ponicall’s townhome. The call was to inform Paul that the home invader case the PPPD had been working on was heating up. A couple of the sheriff’s investigators had followed a pair of hoodlums and busted them in the act. Both were in custody.

“You need to call the detective from the sheriff’s office,” Paul’s office said after he called dispatch to see what they wanted, “and contact them about that case.”

Paul called and got hold of a sheriff who previously happened to have been a reserve agent with the PPPD.

“Hey, Paul,” he said, “we caught these guys in Seminole City. Pinellas County. Looks like they’re the same guys who were doing your [cases] down there. Seems like they want to talk.”

Paul got off the phone and called his number
two
guy for that weekend, Detective Scott Golczewski. With a mouthful for a last name, the guys on the squad called Scott “Ski” for short. As a rite of passage, cops liked to give one another nicknames. Ski didn’t mind.

“Ski, can you go over there and interview these two guys?”

“Sure.”

Paul walked away from his home phone after ending the call with Ski and back into his life as a civilian. As he did that, however, the phone rang a second time.

“Yeah?”

It was dispatch again.

“We got a lady who’s hurt real bad…. We don’t know what happened to her.”

Sandee Rozzo.

“Okay.”

After dispatch explained a bit of the details, Paul hung up the phone and thought about things. He had a strange feeling, he later said, that something wasn’t right with the call. It was one of those tugs at the gut that cops get from time to time that make them act. Something inside every cop.

After thinking about it, Paul called Ski a second time.

“Listen, sorry, but I need you to divert and go to this other call.” Paul explained what he knew about Sandee Rozzo’s case—and how it struck him as a case that was definitely not routine. Anyway, those supermarket thugs were in custody. They weren’t going anywhere. Interviewing them could wait.

“No problem,” Ski said.

After that, Paul called another one of his detectives, Brian Cook. “Get over to the sheriff’s office for me, would you?”

Dispatch had explained to Paul by this point that Sandee Rozzo was rushed to the hospital. Her boyfriend, Tony Ponicall, had called it in. From what Paul knew, Tony claimed to have found Sandee inside her 1996 BMW convertible in the garage—she was bleeding profusely and unresponsive.

Paul didn’t know much else. The woman was still alive, dispatch reported. Although fighting for her life, Sandee Rozzo had a pulse when she was taken away from the scene. She was on her way to Bayfront Medical Center. There seemed to be some urgency in getting her there, though, Paul was told.

It was bad.

Didn’t appear she was going to make it.

At Bayfront, not a second after Tony Ponicall was told that Sandee Rozzo, his live-in girlfriend and roommate, had been shot, he said he knew who was responsible for the crime. In fact, there was no doubt in his mind, Tony said later. Sandee had even told him once:
“If I am ever killed,
this
is the person responsible.”
She showed him a piece of paper with the name.
“You give this to the police.”

For detectives gathering information and heading over to Tony and Sandee’s townhome, that revelation by Tony at the hospital, the fact that he knew who was responsible for the crime, might seem a little bit too convenient. As it were, the PPPD had some rather probing questions for Tony. After all, he was the only witness. He had found Sandee. He had called 911, calm and cool. And now, right away, here he was accusing
someone else
of the crime?

As Ski pulled into the driveway near the townhome and got out of his car, a patrol officer walked up to him and explained what they had. Then, as Ski assessed the situation for himself, “This one’ll be hard for ya, huh, Ski,” the officer said sarcastically, giving a breathy laugh. “Boyfriend is the only one home. He finds her. Calls it in.” There was almost a chuckle in his voice, as if Ski had the case wrapped up before he even started sniffing around.

Regardless of what anyone thought this early on, the attack on Sandee Rozzo was no longer a mere felony assault with a deadly weapon. Detectives just arriving on scene at the townhome were being told that they were now looking at a murder case.

Murder?

After a team of medics worked tirelessly to try to revive her, Sandee Rozzo had died from the many gunshot wounds to her body, Bayfront had reported. She lay on a gurney inside the hospital, her body naked and bloodied, an intubation tube sticking out of her mouth. Her once-lively, beautiful eyes stared glassily up toward the ceiling, frozen in time.

Thirty-seven-year-old Sandee Rozzo’s worst fear was that she was going to be killed before she had a chance to testify in that rape case.

Now Sandee was dead.

Patrol officers back at the scene locked the townhome down. No one was going to be getting in. Detective Paul Andrews and other members of the DU were concerned that if Tony had had something to do with murdering Sandee, perhaps there were more victims inside the house. The PPPD had learned upon arriving at the scene that Sandee had a young daughter. The home needed to be secured and searched. What if her daughter was inside that townhome, bleeding, fighting for
her
life?

Time was of the essence now.

After Paul arrived, he grabbed several officers.

“Let’s get a neighborhood canvass going.”

They needed to knock on doors and find out what they could. Had anybody seen or heard anything? What type of neighbor was Tony Ponicall? Who would want Sandee Rozzo dead? Did anyone see her pulling into the garage? Were there any odd-looking, suspicious characters hanging around near the time Sandee came home?

Several of the first responders had relayed information to Paul that made him slightly wary. Apparently, Tony had locked up the house and sped away from the scene, following the ambulance. The question was, obviously, why lock the house? Your girlfriend is bleeding and unresponsive. You’re presumably panic-stricken and in shock, wondering what the hell is going on, if Sandee is alive or dead. Yet, before getting into your vehicle to follow the ambulance to the hospital, your girl fighting for her life, you stop and lock up your house? What could be so important inside the house that it needed to be locked up?

Under normal circumstances Paul Andrews and the PPPD would need at least an oral consent and then a signed written consent before they could barge into the house. Did Tony know this? Was he aware of the law?

One officer tried to smash a window with his baton to get in, banking on the idea that there might be additional victims inside.

“But it wasn’t breakable glass,” Paul said later.

The forced entry would be covered under the grounds of a protective search. New information the PPPD had uncovered since Sandee left the scene was that she had a daughter. The PPPD needed to get inside that townhome and make sure Sandee’s daughter (and/or anyone else) wasn’t inside—at least under the terms of the law.

While Ski and several officers canvassed the immediate neighborhood, Paul Andrews called two more detectives, Cindy Martin and Harry Augello.

“Cindy, I need you to get over here right away,” Paul told her.

Paul then called Harry at home. Told him the same thing. It was Augello’s turn to be the primary investigator, but he was swamped with several large fraud cases.

They could sort through the managerial hierarchy later. Time was beginning to work against everyone.

There was an officer already at the hospital, but Paul wanted to make sure the PPPD got a chance to grab Sandee’s clothes for forensics and conduct a search of her body for any trace. Plus, someone needed to keep an eye on Tony Ponicall, maybe ask him a few questions. Weigh his reaction. Size the guy up. Get him to lock down on a story and statement.

“I know who killed Sandee….”

When Martin and Augello showed up at the townhome, Paul pulled Augello aside and explained things.

“I need you and Cindy to go down to the hospital.”

Done.

After stopping by the PPPD to retrieve a digital recorder, Augello and Martin drove to Bayfront. They arrived at one-fifteen, the following morning, July 6.

As soon as they walked in, the emergency room (ER) staff informed the two detectives that Sandee had expired, which they already knew.

Augello went in to view the body.

Sandee Rozzo was a mess. She had blood all over her face, mixed with the makeup she had put on that night for work. There was additional spatter and blotching over various sections of her naked body. One wound had entered her thigh, close to her crotch. She had holes in her face and hands.

“I…observed a larger hole above the bridge of her nose,” Augello said, “and between the eyes, as well as several other holes in her chest and stomach area.”

Looking at Sandee, studying where the wounds were located, Augello thought,
This was not some random shooting….
All those shots to the face and chest.
Whoever did this knew her.
It was not hard for Augello to tell that Sandee had been shot at close range. Augello knew that she had been fired upon while inside her own garage, and nothing had been taken from the scene. “Everything starts pointing toward this is either revenge, or something else that was very,
very
personal,” Augello said.

Tony Ponicall.

“Of course,” Augello said, “Mr. Ponicall was first on our list.”

There was an ER nurse standing with Detective Augello. She pointed at Sandee’s foot. “There appears to be either an exit or entry wound on the bottom here.”

Augello looked. Interesting.

Duly noted.

What did this wound tell the PPPD initially? For one, it said that Sandee could have fallen down inside her vehicle as her killer kept firing and firing until, possibly, the gun was out of ammo. Perhaps Sandee tried to use her feet to protect herself?

“Mr. Ponicall is in the waiting room with another officer,” the nurse said.

“Thanks.”

Augello met up with the officer who had been hanging out with Tony. They conversed outside the room for a bit.

“He [Tony] gave me a brief statement,” the officer told Augello. Then explained how Tony had said he woke up and found Sandee inside her car. Quietly the officer added one more thing that seemed to raise a few eyebrows. “Mr. Ponicall told me that Miss Rozzo was the victim of a sexual assault two years ago, [for] which the trial was set for next month. The name of the guy who raped Rozzo”—the officer flipped through his notes—“is, um, Tracey Humphries….”

Tracey Humphries. The name didn’t ring a bell with the investigator, and understandably so. The last name had been misspelled, they would discover later.

Martin and Augello got together before heading in to talk to Tony Ponicall. They needed some sort of plan.

“We’re thinking,” Augello told me later, “okay, she’s a bartender…. Um, Tony Ponicall, the little we knew about him then, did not really seem like her type. Maybe he got upset or jealous that she got herself another boyfriend. Maybe he shot her?”

“Carefully” was the way to approach interviewing Tony Ponicall.

They found Tony and escorted him to what cops call a “soft room,” somewhere private and safe, where they can talk things through without interruption.

They sat down. Augello hit the record button and placed the digital recorder on the armrest of the chair near Tony, who looked down at it but didn’t seem to mind it being there.

“We just want to have an accurate record of your statement, Mr. Ponicall,” Augello said.

Tony appeared broken. He nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

“How long,” Augello asked, “do you think the sequence of events you describe took place?”

Tony closed his eyes. Thought it over. “I heard the bangs, came downstairs, and went from the front door to the kitchen/garage door in, oh, about thirty seconds.”

It was about two minutes, Tony said, from the beginning of the bangs until he called 911.

“Do you know of anyone with a reason to want to harm Miss Rozzo, Mr. Ponicall?”

Tony didn’t hesitate. “Tracey Humphries killed Sandee!” He explained that Sandee was slated to testify against Tracey Humphries regarding a kidnapping, false imprisonment, and sexual battery case. The guy was looking at ten years behind bars if found guilty. Sandee was steadfast in her determination to see that he got what he deserved. “She told me”—it seemed hard for Tony to speak on the matter—“that if anything ever happened to her, to make sure the cops went after Tracey Humphries.”

All good reasons, both detectives knew, to want someone dead. One of the oldest motives in the book: stifling a witness.

“We had to sit back and think that here is Sandee Rozzo’s boyfriend”—the guy who found her all shot up—“pointing a finger at someone else,” Augello said later.

Augello asked Tony if he knew anything else about this Tracey Humphries character.

“I know that he was accused several times by different women of doing the same thing to them over the last several years. Sandee had worked with Humphries in Ybor City at a placed called Inferno.”

The terrible weight of realizing the woman he loved had been murdered in their garage while he slept upstairs, oblivious to it all, was written all over Tony’s face. He was downtrodden and falling fast. Slumping shoulders. Sagging skin. That empty look in his eyes. The impact of the events was quickly sucking the life out of Tony as each hour passed. The weight of Sandee’s death was beginning to settle on him like a flu.

“Do you or Miss Rozzo own a gun?” Augello asked.

“No.”

“Do you know if”—Augello looked down at his notes—“Tracey Humphries owns a gun?”

“I do not know. Sorry.”

“Did you see anyone running away or leaving the scene as you got up?”

“No.”

After a few more questions, Augello was happy with the establishing facts he and Martin had gleaned: where Tony parked his vehicle, who owned the townhome, various times of this and that, and locking Tony down to a story. Augello then asked if Tony had a problem with the PPPD searching the townhome.

Tony said he didn’t.

“Your Toyota 4Runner, too?”

“Sure.”

Augello took out a consent to search form and had Tony sign it.

“He actually agreed to everything,” Paul Andrews said later. “For us to photograph and process his body, get his fingerprints and footprints. He also gives us consent to process his vehicle…. He could not have been more cooperative with us—but not to the point where it would have been suspicious.”

Tony made it clear to all law enforcement around him at the hospital that he was going to do everything in his power to help the PPPD catch Sandee Rozzo’s killer.

No one was going to change his mind on that.

When Paul, who was back at the townhome managing the scene, heard how forthcoming Tony was with information and his desire to help, the supervising detective was somewhat relieved.

“Until you rule somebody out, you’re always skeptical—and you’re
always
looking at your own skepticism. The fact was, Tony was cooperating, so let’s allow him to do just that and see where it leads us.”

No tunnel vision.

Paul and his detectives were not the overbearing
Law & Order
types, grinding people down until they coughed up information. The real world of catching killers doesn’t work like that. You follow the evidence, cops will say. You allow the investigation to dictate where you need to go next. At this early stage, merely hours into the case, it’s about gathering data, conducting interviews with potential witnesses, and digging up the bits and pieces that would hopefully fall into place later on.

“We’re very direct with witnesses and suspects when we need to be, and an investigation gets to that point,” Paul was quick to say. “But there was never any of that with Tony. He was not a problem.”

Moreover, information was coming in at a good, steady pace. It was time to collect, not question, every bit of data that came in.

As Tony got comfortable talking to detectives, there was no doubt in his mind about who was responsible for killing Sandee. He repeated it over and over.

“Tracey Humphries.”

“That was the name we kept hearing,” Paul said.

Yet, it was a name that would also throw things into a tailspin and actually confuse law enforcement as investigators began to learn the particulars of Sandee Rozzo’s life over the past few years.

Then there was that little search of Tony Ponicall’s 4Runner, which seemed to throw a wrench in the spokes of
his
story.

Among the “several items of interest” the PPPD found inside Tony’s Toyota: several blankets, a pair of black leather gloves, and an empty Sani-Wipe wrapper found on the driver’s-side floorboard.